i'm 24, and I have about $2,000 to invest?
549825
First, do you have a "rainy day" fund with at least 3 months expenses?  If not, just stick the money in a money market fund for the day when you unexpectedly need cash.\n\n2nd, have you maxed out your Roth IRA (if you qualify)?  If not, do it.  If you don't have a Roth IRA yet, start one at T Rowe Price (I believe most Fidelity and Vanguard funds have a $3,000 minimum).  Invest the money in a good index fund such as the Total Equity Market Index.  Or do some research to see which fund fits your growth targets and risk tolerance.
15288
If by short you mean 2 to 4 years try investing in life settlements or viatical settlements.  These investments can get very high returns from typically about 16% to 22% and sometimes higher,and with little to NO risk to your priciple if you find the right companies.  Be weary though, there are a bunch of crap companies out there that will just rip you off, but I have had personal experiance with a couple of top notch companies and have seen it happen.  I guarantee that a majority of the folks on here have never even heard of these investments, but there is an alternative to the stock market and mutual funds.  You just have to know where to look.\n\ngood luck
622216
This is absolutely not your best option!!! TRUST ME, I KNOW!!! Mutual funds are always the way to go but if you are looking to make your money grow fast....invest in CHEESE. The 2nd richest man next to Bill Gates is a cheese man. last year their stocks split almost 2 a month. I did and by the end of last year I was very very wealthy!!!! I'm 26 and finacially have the resources to retire and live comfortably until I'm 85 and never work another day in my life. AINT LIFE GRAND!!!!!
576852
mr. i think u should go to a market consultant as the market is realy verrry speculative now a days and i will suggest u not to invest without a propper guidence ..........
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.
1012922
These people are so silly!  The best thing to do is open an investor account like at ScotTrade.  Put the money in a mutual fund that has a very low Expense Ratio (less than one...say 0.76%.  You can find this info at Morningstar.com...)  Buy into the mutual fund that you choose and even buy more shares with monthly payments into the account.\nYou would be shocked an amazed at what 25 dollars a week will do over thirty-five years.  In fact, if everything keeps going well with the mutual fund, you should be able to retire in 35 years, and that is not counting a 401 you have with a company or even your social security!\nGet to saving now!  Let your money work for you!
202390
Whatever you can afford.  The best way to get started is to figure out how much extra money that you have at the end of the month.  Make sure that it is money that you plan on investing for the long term.  You don't have to invest a big lump sum.  \n\nThe best strategy for a beginner is to systematically, dollar cost average into a low cost mutual fund.  Find yourself a good no load, index or growth fund and set up an account to automatically take a fixed amount from your bank account every month.  When the market is low, you are buying more shares and when the market is high, you are buying less shares.  You will find that you won't miss the money and in a short period of time you will discover the power of dollar cost averaging combined with the compounding of money.  Good luck!!
60320
Disregard that last well meaning answer.  There are two parts to your question.  The first is where are some greate ways to invest money.  The second is to see a good return in a couple of years.  The second constrains the first.\n\nThe problem is that equity mutual funds (of which Vanguard is a great provider) are really decade or longer investments.  The market is very high right now in absolute terms.  The odds of making a great return in a few years is pretty low.  About the only thing that can give you a good return in a few years with any margin of safety is a certificate of deposit.\n\nI did a search on bankrate monitor.  The two best rates are at AMTrust in Cleveland, Ohio, with a yield of 5.00% for a two year investment.  A $1000 investment would yield a total value of $1102.50 ignoring taxes at maturity.  Slightly lower, Pacific Mercantile Bank is offering a yield of 4.92% per year in Costa Mesa, California.\n\nIf you wanted a one year CD, Corus Bank in Chicago is offering a 4.94% annual yield for its one year CD.\n\nIf you lift the constraint of a year or two to a more indefinite horizon and would include equity mutual funds.  I would recommend the following funds, Mutual Financial Services Z (symbol TEFAX) only warning is that it is very globally diversified, Fairholme (FAIRX), American Century Value Inv (ACTIX), BB&T Large Company Val I(BBISX).  You can buy these from discount brokers.  In BB&T's case, you can go into their branch and purchase it.  TD Waterhouse is reasonable in terms of purchase costs and you may be able to purchase directly from the funds.  Check each out online to see if they offer direct purchase. \n\nThey take different risks, but you should avoid too much grief in any of them and over time you should do reasonably well.  A combination of them might be in your interest if your time frame is long.  You should presume you will not do well in the next few years however.
7682
I would suggest that you work with a professional broker or financial advisor - they can recommend funds & stocks that meet your needs.\n\nAsk someone you trust to recommend someone they trust.\n\nI know nothing about stocks & investing, but I've managed (on average) make some money (and not lose it) in stocks, _only_ becasue I have a broker who I can trust.
1020732
work, save and invest.  if you want money go to where the money is.
483250
Meet with a financial advisor.  You will have to do some hard-core saving.  The best bet is to have money taken right out of your paycheck, the more the better.  Your advisor will walk you through different investment options - mutual funds, annuities, stocks etc.  Mutual funds are great, they're several stocks of different risk levels all bundled together to minimize the risk while maximizing potential earnings.  If you could put $200 a month in for 15 years in a moderately aggressive mutual fund, you could easily end up with $50,000.
460925
'John Blaze' is full of sh*t; you don't need $25K to daytrade. Open a brokerage account. Study John Murphy, "Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets". Don't trust money managers; they will rip you off. Take control of your money. Find a stock that has huge price swings daily or weekly such as Juniper Networks or Redback Networks. These are high 'beta' stocks. Depending on your age, part of your portfolio should be speculative. If you are in your 20s and your portfolio is less than 100K, then definitely you should be using your knowledge and investing in high beta stocks to profit greatly from their daily and weekly price swings. You have the years to do that. 'Short' the stock when it goes down, and go 'Long' when it goes up. As your portfolio grows to a couple Mil or so, then you can pull back and put some of it in stuff that is a little lower beta such as the QQQ. As an example of how well you can do by taking control of your money: if just do your normal 1% per day on that 100K porfolio over a year through profiting from the swings, how much would you have after one year? You got it my friend, way over $$$1Mil!! Give it whorl, go for it!
224308
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.
364620
It sounds like you have everything you need for now, so maybe you could look to the future... retirement account perhaps?\n\nSounds boring, but if you start investing now, you will either have a lot of money when you retire, or you can retire early.  If I didn't need anything immediately right now, like a car or a tv or something for my house, knowing I could retire earlier would be nice.
51865
it depends on how much money you have to invest
423416
It's hard to give you any real investment advice without knowing more about you.  How much disposable income do you have, in other words, how much can you comfortably afford to invest?  Do you rent, live at home, something else?  What's your occupation?  What is your risk tolerance?  Is the job you're in what you plan to do the rest of your life?  And the biggest thing, what do you want the invested monies for.  Long term such as retirement or a shorter term.\n\nIf you were one of my clients, there are a lot of things we would talk about before we would pick an investment.\n\nRight now with your income I would tell you to stay away from anything with any risk such as mutual funds or stocks.  Perhaps savings bonds or a high yield savings account.\nAnother thing to invest in is perhaps furthering your education and moving on to a higher paying job.  Investing in yourself.\n\nPlease consult a financial specialist.  It's better to get professional help.  If you have any questions, feel free to email me here.
903561
Buy a $1,000 Series I Savings Bond.  It's also one of the safest ways to invest.