Just a General Oppinion Question.  I'm a 19 year old college student, with a little bit of money that im looking to invest, via stocks, some sort of ipo, mutual fund something like that.  I run into a problem with mutual funds due to the small amount that im looking to spend around 300-500$US.  I have savings accounts and money market accounts, but these are to help pay for college, im looking to start to get into, some decently high risk investments with hopes of good returns within the next 3-5 years.  Anyone who knows of good areas in which i could invest, and would be willing to explain, would be greatly apprieciated.
120884
$300 - $500???  Good returns????\n\nWhat a waste of time and effort!\n\nWhere you park that amount of money doesn't matter a hill o' beans.  Even 0% return is fine.\n\nYou should be concentrating on adding to that nest egg and getting it to a sizable amount before talking stocks or mutual funds.  When I say "sizable, I'm talking $5k - $10k at the very least.\n\nIf you invest that money and you aren't charged any fees at all (not likely) and you make a super-duper 20% return on $500 the first year, you've made a measly $100.  How long would it take you to find $100 to add to that nest egg just by working at Taco Bell?  A couple of days?\n\nPut that money wherever you want and concentrate on building it up before you start talking investing.  Otherwise the hard work over such small amounts of money in return will burn you out.\n\nIf you really want to invest that money wisely, buy some books on investing or on your education in some field that really gets your blood flowing that will enable you to make serious money by making yourself more valuable either to an employer or out in the business world.\n\nThen you'll really see a super duper exponential return on your money if you do it right.  The first book you might consider buying with that money is a book by Warren Farrell entitled "Why Men Earn More".  It was written primarily for women but it will be no less helpful to you as a guy.  It'll teach you where the money's at.\n\nNumber two on the list you should consider would be, "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George S. Clason.  Then if you'd really like to get serious about making some really serious money, number three should be, "Mentored by a Millionaire" by Steven K. Scott.  Number four could be, "The Millionaire's Secrets" by Mark Fisher.\n\nGood luck!  Invest in yourself!
185964
You should definitely start with no load mutual funds.  With limited resources, the commissions will kill your returns on single stocks.  Go to www.vangaurd.com or www.fidelity.com and I think you can start for as little as $25. When you talk to them, let them know you are young and want a fund with above average risk.
469185
If you are starting out and you dont know anything about stocks it is better to invest in a no load mutual fund, such as Vanguard Equity Income fund. You willneed $3,000 to open yor account and you can add $100 any time. If you buy stocks it will cost you commissions and if you dont have at least $50,000 to start you cant diversify.But stick with large cap stocks . The blue chips. A  mutual fund is your best bet. I am an investor for 40yrs.
405995
A very difficult question to answer. I see that you have a previous response that said yes and one that said no.   The problem is that no one knows for sure what the future might hold.  Here is what I suggest that you consider doing.  Take the amount that you considered investing in mutual funds and split it into 4 equal parts.  Invest one part now into a mutual fund that you think is good.  The other 3 parts place into a guarnteed account, bank account or short term government bonds.  Six months from now, invest the 2nd part in the mutual fund if the fund has increased in value.  If it has not, do not do anything.  Six months later go through the same exercise.  That way you are not risking more than 1/4 of your funds initiially.    And always keep 1/4 in reserve in case there is a terrible stock market crash.  That is the time that you can invest and make a lot of money so save for that event.  Crashes come more often than most people want.
622813
Hi fren, I think it is not advisable to invest in Mutual Funds this time, provided u have some other investments which can compensate any loss u might incur. I say so because if u follow market, u can see that for few of the very strong funds the NAV has gone down.\nMutual funds, depend on share market and currently all the analysts (national and international) have advised their clients to take a vacation.\nI think for a new investor like you, u should wait for some time, let the market stabilise once then u can think of getting in.
62052
I think most financial advisors would say that is a fairly conservative long term investment. Specially if you are doing it through a mutual fund company like Vanguard which has pretty low expenses
320046
Buy a diversified series of HIGH QUALITY, LOW EXPENSE mutual funds. One good piece of advice is that especially when just starting out, owning individual stocks is just way too risky. In many cases, it's more akin to gambling than investing. So go with mutual funds, which are much more diversified, and therefore spread the risk among many, many more holdings. The key, of course, is buying quality. So make sure you hit ALL the asset classes, like Large cap stocks, small/mid cap stocks, international stocks, emerging markets stocks, government debt, corporate debt, hi-yield debt, foreign debt, emerging markets debt, real estate, commodities, and precious metals. That's 12 categories right there, so with $1200, you're talking about $100 each. This is called asset allocation, and it's a step beyond simple "diversification", which most idiots think is buying a hardware tech stock AND a software tech stock.\n\nAdd systematically on a monthly basis. That means make sure you put the same amount of money in every month, no matter what. Soon you won't even care what any of the markets are doing. They're up? Great! Some of my investments are worth more. They're down? Great! Now I'm buying quality investments at an "on sale" price.\n\nThen sit back and re-balance each year, back to your original percentages. Again, this is called asset allocation. It's is very important, perhaps the most important thing you can do with your money. The thinking being, what's BEEN hot is more than likely not going to STAY hot. All markets are cyclical. There's hundreds of years of data to back this up. Yet some people still think they can ride the next hot wave. They usually wind up begging on the street for beer money.\n\nNow, this sort of portfolio should average 8-12% per year, so just split the difference and say 10% on average. Will it do 10% EVERY year? Of course not. I'd be surprised if it EVER did EXACTLY 10%. That's an annual average. With that average, your money should double roughly every 7 years.\nSo, if you're starting with $1200 or so like I said in my example, then in 7 years , even if you added no more money, you should have about $2,400\nin 14 years you should have about $4,800\nin 21 years you should have about $9,600\nin 28 years you should have about $19,200\nin 35 years you should have about $38,400\nin 42 years you should have about $76,800\nin 49 years you should have about $153,600\nin 56 years you should have about $307,200\nin 63 years you should have about $614,400\nin 70 years you should have about $1,228,800!\n\nOf course, if you keep adding money in that $100 a month, you'll become a millionaire MUCH sooner. The key is discipline, and sticking in when markets are up OR down. Don't try to time the market--you'll NEVER get it right.\n\nBy the way, here's a handy formula:\n\n$100/month x 12% x 20 years = $100,000.\n\nSo if you need $300,000 in 20 years and have no idea how to get it, just save $300 a month and you're there. If you don't get 12%, you'll wind up with less naturally. But IF you still wind up with $250,000, I'd call that one hell of a failure.\n\nOh, and if you qualify on income limits (generally, if you're a single filer and make under $90,000/yr), and do this all in a Roth IRA? Then every penny will be 100% TAX-FREE. That's a deal that's too good to pass up. That's why I tell anyone who's under 30--if you make under $90,000, and therefore qualify to do a Roth, you'd be a fool not to. Just having the power of youth (and therefore time) on your side is such an advantage, to squander it would be such a waste!\n\nHope this helps!\n--J.
442940
deep discount brokerage...like scottrade, e-trade....\n\nyou don't want commissions eating up much of your $500\n\nstart with something relatively safe...\nI would recommend a high dividend paying stock....so that you are getting something while you save up for your next investment\n\nwhat to try???\nUSA, ASG, IAF, GIM \nCNE, PGH, PDS, ENT, BTE\n\nThese are relatively inexpensive and pay a nice dividend....\n\ngood hunting
372511
Do I have to make a choice?  In a few other posts, I have pointed out the disadvantages of investing in mutual funds.  It is exceptionally rare that any mutual fund will outperform its benchmark over the longer term, especially after fees and taxes are factored in.  \nI'm going to assume that you're asking this question b/c you are only given Calamos funds as options in your 401K and that you have to pick one.  Without knowing your specific financial circumstances (which is critical to find the most appropriate fund) I will give you two Calamos recommendations.  I just checked out the prospectus online and it looks like the Global Growth and Income, and to a lesser extent, the Growth and Income fund, are pretty decent.  Both have consistently beat their benchmarks and the fees are amongst the lowest of all Calamos funds (although I'm still shocked at how high the Calamos fees are overall).  These funds should be good and would be most appropriate in a tax-deferred account like a Roth 401K where the taxation of the dividend income and capital appreciation will not eat away at returns.  Steer clear of the Growth fund.  These guys are making a huge bet in Tech and must not be historians of the market.  They should look at what happened to Janus funds in the late 90's and they might reconsider a 34% allocation to technology.\n\nThat's my $0.02.
438427
Hi, i suggest a great site with plenty of Issues related to your Investing and everything around it. it also provide clear and accurate answer to many common questions.\n\nI am sure that you can get your answers in this website.\n\nhttp://investing.sitesled.com/\n\nGood Luck and Best Wishes!
263436
You can go to sharebuilder and put some in monthly.  If you pick a company that is known to be stable and pay good dividends then you can reinvest the dividends, it becomes sort of like compound interest, where the interest starts earning interest.\n\nDiversification is nice, so low cost Exchange Traded Funds are an important consideration.  I like the Dow Jones Select Dividend Index Fund (DVY).  It is about $62 a share right now and is within pennies of its Net Asset Value, the worth of the stocks inside the fund.  It has a distribution yield of about 3.60 which is a pretty good rate of return compared to if you left the money in the bank.  Every share you buy is getting a slice of some 114 very profitable companies that share part of their profits (dividends) with you the stockholder.\n\nGood luck, whatever you do.
367379
A stock broker will charge you commission on trades, which may be several percentage points of what you invest.  The commission fees generally make this an unacceptable option when you are investing small amounts of money.  You have to remember with a stock broker that the broker doesn't make money unless he's making trades for your account (unless there is a fee arrangement of some sort).  For small amounts of money, mutual funds are probably more reasonable.  The pros of mutual funds is that they are a generally low-cost way to invest across several different companies, and there are professional investors who get paid well to make good investment decisions.  The cons to mutual funds is that they also charge high fees, generally 1-2% and often have really high turnover which can leave you with a hefty tax bill.  Further, it is proven that professional investors rarely beat the stock indices (S&P 500, Russell 2000, etc) over the long term.  My best advice for you would be to explore low cost ETF (Exchange Traded Funds) products that would give you exposure to the market.  Vanguard is well known for a very low cost fund that tracks the S&P 500, which is roughly the largest 500 stocks by market capitalizaiton.  There are also funds that track bond indices, like the Lehman Aggregate index, but assuming that you are younger, you don't really need to have much exposure to bonds right now.  If you can't invest directly with Vanguard or a similar firm that offers low-cost exposure to the market, then you could open an account with a low-fee online broker like Etrade or Ameritrade and then buy broad market ETFs that track something like the S&P 500, etc.  You would also want to consider putting about 10% of your portfolio (assuming again that you are young) in international stocks, which could also be accomplished through low-cost ETFs.  \nThis probably sounds kind of confusing, but the key point here is that stock brokers and mutual fund companies charge high fees and rarely beat the broad market indices.  If you are being charged 2%, then your fund needs to return 2% more than the market for you to come out ahead.  That's much easier said than done.
548330
Don't buy mutual funds. The problem is that they divide up your returns too much.\n\nThe way they're designed creates this problem. The mutual fund managers and employees all have to get paid, this cuts into your earnings. As a result, the fund itself becomes less attractive, so they pay advisers to recommend them, which further cuts into your earnings. But, advisers sing their praises (bc they get paid as long as you own the fund) telling you they help you diversify and protect you if an industry has a bad period. Mutual funds, by their design, add a middleman. With so many ppl saying "cut out the middleman!" why would you invest in mutual funds which, by their design, have a few?\n\nGo direct with stocks. If you do your research and learn about the company and why it's a good one (if you can't answer why it's a good company, don't buy it) then you won't have much to worry about.
232332
I would not buy stock options they are too risky, especially for beginners. I would recommend the following approach:\n\nFirst, I would make sure you have at least 3 months salary saved up in the bank or in a money market fund for an emergency fund. Financial disasters like getting layed off or sick happen to all of us.\nSecond, I would pay off all high interest debt. Pay off everything you can except the house mortgage. Paying off debt is one of the best investments you can make. You will have more money in the future because you won't have credit card bills to pay.\nThird, if you have money left, start investing in stocks, bonds, and money market funds.  You want to buy a diversified portfolio of stocks, as individual stocks are too risky.  For most folks this means buying mutual funds. I like Vanguard.com, other people like Fidelity, TIAA-CREF, and DFA. Buy no-load, low cost funds. If you are like most people you will invest part of your money conservatively, in money market funds and bond funds, and part aggressively in stock funds. Vanguard.com has an on-line questionnaire which will give you an idea how aggressive you want to be. \nInvesting in a mutual fund IRA for retirement may give you an income tax break. Talk to your tax adviser. You may also be able to invest in a stock mutual fund via a 401K plan at work.\nBelieving someone you met over the Internet and know nothing about is risky. Read these websites for further information.
552977
Go to Vanguard.com, they have many good funds index and otherwise and you don't pay a fee to invest with them
595977
You should learn more.  The LA Times has an excellent introductory site to money and investing called the Money Library (free registration required).  Until then, you would probably best be served by buying into funds that have targeted retirement dates.  \n\nThese funds diversify your money for you based on how long until you retire.  They will generally pick appropriate amounts to invest in domestic and foreign stocks, corporate and gov't bonds, and also further diversity between each type of stock, like small cap, big cap and mid-cap.  Same with bonds.  They'll diversity based on investment grades.  \n\nLook for funds called Target Retirement or Lifecycle with a year like 2030 (or close to when you plan to retire) in the title.  Those are the ones that do this diversification and rebalancing automatically.\n\nAlso recommend you pick a very low cost fund, so your gains aren't eaten up in expenses.  The three mutual fund companies I'm listing below all have targeted retirement funds and very low costs.  I've had or have funds with all 3 at one point or another.
91309
well you should start investing small amounts of money.. probably at most US$5000, and trade through online brokers such as Trade King, Ameritrade, Scottstrade, etc. Organize your portfolio in such a way that at least 50% of your stocks are in stable, blue-chip companies. Invest about 35% in mid-risk stocks and check these more frequently. Lastly, invest around 15% in high-risk stocks (usually penny stocks work very well, especially in the biomedical or biotechnological areas) and be sure to check these VERY frequently. Remember, high risk means high potential gain, but it also means high potential loss.