I saw on a tv show that I should only be buying no load mutual funds. Is this right?
359867
He told you that most people don't have the time or brains?  OMG, that would make me wonder right there.  Load funds give your broker a commission up front plus the 12bII's.  No load come in many different forms, check the fine print for the fees.  If you are new and want to learn more about stocks, then may I suggest looking into ETFs?  They are like mutual funds except the fees are lower and they are more transparent and trade all day long, and after hours.  You can find out a lot about stocks, investing on the Internet.  I like to use msn's money site, it taught me a lot.  Good luck and always ask for a prospective before you buy a mutual fund from anyone.\n\nOh, and since this is a Yahoo site, I thought that I would mention that Yahoo has a finance site.  I bounce back and forth between the two because they both have features that the other one doesn't.  Like I can keep track of my investments on Yahoo messenger with Yahoo.
455254
Mutual funds are a type of investment, where professional managers use your money to buy a variety of stocks (or bonds). It spreads the risk among more diverse investments so they are better than buying a single stock.\n\nIf you mean by investing in banks simply putting your money in the bank and earning interest. Then YES, mutual funds are better than that because banks pay almost no interest.
417987
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.
1053867
Yes you can....BUT I WOULD ADVICE YOU AGAINST IT.\n\nAre you trying to time the market?  If you're wrong, you will be left with No Ammo. for the right time.  It's called keeping your powder dry.\n\nIf you do the Month - To - Month... A.K.A. "Dollar Cost Average" - you are essentially not trying to time the market...and your average cost basis will be close to the current market price.\n\nIf you want you can invest once every two weeks...you don't need to wait for the next month to come around.  Also, you can purchase funds into to your Month-to-Month thing, anytime you want...\n\nBottom Line:  Don't put all your money to work at the same time...even if you think you will miss the market bottom
328030
If you're an aggressive investor who wants to follow the market conditions and the swings in the market, you would never subscribe to the modern portfolio theory.\n\nIt's the passive investor who should use that theory, and not put all their eggs in one basket.
1049712
There is a low risk mutual fund out there, ticker symbol PRPFX.  It has never lost money in any year since it started in 1997, and has averaged a return of 6.5% each year.  Go to morningstar.com to get more information on it.  Also, you can acquire it without any fees at Charles Schwab.  Good Luck.
388299
Mutual funds are a group of investors, that usually don't have enough money at one time, pooling there money together to maximize their buying power and  with more money they buy many different stocks in many different companies so that they limit their risk of loss by not investing in one company( or putting your eggs in one basket) Do to the fact that they pool their money the mutual fund can then afford a professional fund manager to pick which stocks, bonds, or money markets to invest in.  Also there are many types of funds, some balanced meaning they invest in all three, stocks, bonds, and money markets, simultaneously and some invest all in stocks, or bonds, or money markets individually. Anyway that is another big discussion. I hope that this helps you out.\n\nRemember mutual funds will never have the big returns of individual stocks but there wont be the losses either.\n\nAverage gains of 8% to 12% over the life of the fund should not be too hard to get.
40519
Mutual funds are a "basket of stocks" that allow you to have an ownership in a more diversified way. Check out ETF's a newer wrinkle on fund investing.\n\nread education links at bobbrinker.com
661299
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.
178271
Vanguard is the low priced leader in the industry. Low expenses and no loads. It is my number one choice. Fidelity has some very low expensed funds, but in comparing money market returns between Vanguard & Fidelity, Vanguard wins. The difference is slight, therefore I would choose convenience if you had a Fidelity office nearby and liked having an office to go to.\n\nAmong the fund families you have many choices, read the educational info @ bobbrinker.com\n\nContrary to the registered reps advice above, unless you are a sophisticated investor, picking a basket of stocks is nonsense. You can't possibly do the research as a sideline and hope to beat the indexes. \n\nI was a RR, Financial Ops & General securities princ. of several brokerage firms in the past. The industry wants you to buy stocks, they can't stand to see you buy no load funds.
664117
Mutual funds are actively mangaged...ie, the manager takes everyone's money , pools it, and buys and sells whatever stocks seem like decent buys.\n\nETFs tend to be pretty static, ie, not alot of change in the makeup of them.\n\nETF's prices change throughout the day as the underlying stocks change price. Theoretically, you could buy in the morning and sell in the afternoon and have 2 different prices. Mutual funds TEND to get priced once a day, after the closing bell.\n\nWith much less turnover, you won't get capital gains distributions from ETFs like you would mutual funds.\n\nETFs trade like stocks...but they are "stocks" made up of other stocks.\n\nETFs are really popular now and getting more popular. Expenses TEND to be lower...if you can find some you like...that might be the route to go.
656791
Anyone can buy or sell a stock their broker accepts orders for unless the stock is on that broker's restricted list.  Not all brokers have the same restricted list so you'll need to always check around.\n\nfinance.yahoo.com's company search was not able to locate a ticker symbol for "suntv" nor is that a valid symbol in itself.  However if you are speaking of SNTVQ; company name Sun Television & Appliance, Inc... that's a different story.  \n\nAsuming you're asking about SNTVQ.PK, I'm not sure what interest a person would have in a bankrupt stock that has traded only 18 times over the past 90 days (2/14/06 - 5/12/06) and the last trade was on 5/3/06 total volume 2,720 at an average price per share of .006 ($16.32 before commissions).  \n\nThough I do not give buy/sell/hold recommendations I do stress the point that a person should NEVER invest/trade ANY amount of money they are not 100% comfortable losing.  Good luck and due your own DD.  Check us out at subpennyradio.com!
1168338
NO stock should really be purchased for short term appreciation. The market is by design, meant to be a long term investment. Trying to time trends is one of the surest ways to lose money! You might as well go to a casino and gamble! If you're looking for relative liquidity but better rates than a savings account, try looking at money market funds, short term Cd's, muni-bonds. Back when Johnny Carson was on TV he had a chimp that had gone heads up with some of the top rated traders in the market. The chimp outperformed all of them over a 30day period! If you're really serious about stock investing then you need to do your homework, Try reading : How to make money in stocks. by William O Neil.and at least 4 other author's books so you can get an appreciation of how these people come up with their recommendations
970570
A mutual fund is exactly what the name suggests.It is a fund Created mutually by a no. of investors like me and you.each investor contributes some amount towards the fund and in turn receives units of that mutual fund in proportion to his/her contribution.\n\nThe fund manager will in turn invest that money in the  market and try to generate profits by selling and buying at appropriate times.\n\nhe will then pass on the profits to mutual fund holders(like u and me) after deducting his fee/commission.\n\nmutual funds have a lot of benefits\n1)it takes out the burden of managing your own portfolio of stocks\n2) it provides investors an opportunity to invest in stocks which otherwise are very expensive for a single person to invest \n3)it provides you access to professional management of your investment.\n\nmutual funds are primarily of 3 types\n\n1)Equity oriented funds:most of the money would be invested in equity instruments(shares):high risk and high return.\n\n2)Growth oriented funds:most of the money is invested in Debt instruments e.g.Bonds,debentures etc.:low risk ,low return\n\n3)Balanced funds: half the money is invested in debt ,half in equity:moderate risk,moderate return \n\nhope this helps....cheers
290600
Dude, you need to check out what is called an indexed mutual fund. The way it works is the company guarantees your full invested capital; so you can't lose that. The money that they make is added to the value of your fund, but you have to lock it in for a minimum amount of time; can be as long as ten years. This is a good place to start out. If your feeling more daring invest in silver or mining companies like Pan American Silver trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker PAA. This baby is on rails right now, you can check them out on their web site and research their history. Hey your the blunt guy aren't you? Well good luck towards your first million and keep living the American dream.
370399
Mathematically, it is best to put it all in at once.  However, emotionally it can be gut wrenching.  I put a lot of money into Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund all at once, and the first thing it did was drop 10%.  I held onto my guts and it's now up ~50%.
333655
Per, Jim Cramer, you should invest in Mutual Fund managers.  He recommends Willian Danoff, the manager of the Fidelity Contrafund.  It has done so well, it is closing the doors to new invesors in a couple of weeks.  Better Hurry up if you want to get in on the action.