The best thing is to buy Ethereum, Bitcoin and such coins as:
1. TRX
2. Ripple
3. Litecoin
4. NEO
But the last four it's my opinion - you can choose something more
However, put most of your instment into Ethereum and Bitcoin
It's for save
Ripple is not decentralized, so it might not be a good choice.
all these coins have a huge market cap and you can't make money with 1200$ on them you should try to find the next trx,neo.... these coins are mostly store of value than investment.
maybe he can select cheap coins with a profitable chance in the future, he can make a research for ada, waves, trx while the price of each coin is still cheap. and with that money, I guess he can make a big profit once the price increase higher and I am sure that three coins will increase in the future. I think cheap coins price still profitable to increase so if he can analyze each coin that we suggested to him, I think he can find more coins to buy.