If early retirement is something you’re striving for, you’re not alone. A 2024 YouGov survey found that 22% of Gen Zers and 30% of millennials expect to retire between the ages of 51 and 60. (1) That’s young, especially if you consider that Medicare eligibility typically doesn’t begin until age 65 and Social Security’s full retirement age for Gen Zers and millennials is 67.

If your goal is to retire early, you’ll need to save aggressively early on in your career and invest your money wisely. Finance personality Jim Cramer has some guidance in that regard.

He told CNBC (2) he has a “radical” approach to help everyday investors grow their portfolios and meet their financial goals. Here are the three assets Cramer says to invest in — and what you need to know about them.

Investing in index funds is a strategy many financial experts recommend.

Index funds are passively managed funds that aim to mirror the performance of a specific market benchmark. An S&P 500 index fund, for example, will seek to replicate the S&P 500’s performance by matching its holdings and weightings.

They differ from actively managed funds in that they don’t have professionals hand-picking stocks. An active fund will try to perform better than the S&P 500 by picking a handful of stocks from it. Conversely, rather than try to beat the market, an index fund is happy to capture its returns.

Investing legend Warren Buffett has long recommended that everyday investors put their long-term savings into index funds. And research supports this theory. Index funds tend to outperform the majority of fund managers tasked with picking stocks, especially when factoring in their lower fees.

For example, according to S&P Global, in the 15 years ending June 30, 2025, roughly 88% of actively managed large-cap funds underperformed the S&P 500 index. (3)

While some financial experts may recommend putting all or the bulk of your investment capital into index funds, Cramer says to keep them to about 45% to 50% of your portfolio.

His logic is that a large position in index funds can help anchor and diversify your portfolio. But branching out into other assets could make it possible to beat the market broadly and enjoy higher returns.

While investing in index funds could yield great returns for your portfolio, it won’t help you beat the broad market. And you may need to do that if you want to retire early.

To this end, Cramer suggests allocating 45% to 50% of your portfolio to five different stocks. The bulk of these stocks, he said, should offer innovative products or services, durable competitive advantages over peers and be capable of delivering consistent earnings growth over several decades.

If you’re relatively young, Cramer also suggests that one or two of these stocks should be more speculative. Such stocks offer greater upside potential but also come with more risk. If they go bust, Cramer added, young people at least still have plenty of time left to make their money back.

Throughout the years, there have been many individual stocks that have outperformed the stock market. By the end of trading on Oct. 31, the S&P 500 had climbed 95% in five years. Nvidia, on the other hand, rose about 1,291% in value over that same timeframe.

This is just one example. The point is that it’s possible to choose individual stocks that perform better than the stock market as a whole.

That said, Cramer’s advice to choose only five stocks to invest in could be very risky. If you’re putting roughly half of your portfolio into five stocks, each one will represent close to 10% of your total assets. This means that if a single stock does poorly, you could be looking at big losses.

If you’re going to invest in individual stocks, you may want to branch out a bit more than Cramer suggests. And if you’re going to stick to five stocks only, you may want to make sure they’re not all from the same segment of the market.

One thing some investors don’t realize is that the S&P 500 is a market-cap-weighted index, meaning companies with a larger market valuation influence its performance more.

If you then go and invest in one of those larger companies as one of your five individual stocks, your retirement savings could heavily hinge on the performance of just one company.

Read More: Young millionaires are rethinking stocks in 2026 and banking on these assets instead — here’s why older Americans should take note

While Cramer’s advice is to put the bulk of investment capital into index funds and individual stocks, he also supports the idea of allocating 5% to 10% of an investment portfolio to what he calls “insurance” assets — investments that can serve as a hedge against stock market downturns. Two of Cramer’s favorites in this category are gold and bitcoin.

In February of 2010, the price of gold was $1,112.50 per ounce. Fast forward to early November 2025, and the price had climbed to $4,032.70.

If you look at the price of gold over the past 100 years, you’ll see that it’s gone up substantially. Because gold is only available in a limited supply, it has a tendency to hold its value, making it a good hedge against not just stock market volatility, but inflation.

Bitcoin, of course, has not been around as long as gold. It was worth just pennies when it first launched in 2009. In October 2025, it hit a record high of just over $126,000.

But through the years, bitcoin’s value has fluctuated substantially, and not always for the better. Bitcoin is considered a very risky investment for many reasons, including its lack of regulatory protection, questions about its sustainability and extreme price volatility.

However, limiting it to a small proportion of your portfolio could allow you to enjoy some upside without taking on too much risk overall.

Cramer’s approach to building wealth is valid but also somewhat risky. His guidance for the individual stock portion could create insufficient diversification. And crypto assets in general can be risky, not just because of their relative newness, but because the crypto market is still highly unregulated.

If you’re going to follow Cramer’s guidance, make sure you research your individual stocks carefully and that you understand the risks of owning an asset like bitcoin.

And if you decide to branch out with gold instead, make sure you’re getting it from a reputable source and have a way to store it securely. If you don’t like the idea of holding physical gold, you could also consider a gold ETF.

We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.

YouGov (1); CNBC (2); S & P Global (3).

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.