What is absolutely the best financial investment in this country?
535729
Standard & Poor 500\n\nWhat is it?\n\nAn index consisting of 500 stocks chosen for market size, liquidity and industry grouping, among other factors. The S&P 500 is designed to be a leading indicator of U.S. equities and is meant to reflect the risk/return characteristics of the large-cap universe.\n\nCompanies included in the index are selected by the S&P Index Committee, a team of analysts and economists at Standard & Poor's. The S&P 500 is a market-value weighted index - each stock's weight in the index is proportionate to its market value.\n \nThe S&P 500 is one of the most commonly used benchmarks for the overall U.S. stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was at one time the most renowned index for U.S. stocks, but because the DJIA contains only 30 companies, most people agree that the S&P 500 is a better representation of the U.S. market. In fact, many consider it to be the definition of the market.\n\nOther popular Standard & Poor's indexes include the S&P 600, an index of small-cap companies with a market capitalization between $300 million and $2 billion, and the S&P 400, an index of mid-cap companies with market capitalizations of $2 billion to $10 billion.\n\nA number of financial products based on the S&P 500 are available to investors. These include index funds and ETFs. However, it would be difficult for individual investors to buy the index, as this would entail buying 500 different stocks.\n\nGoogle recently joined the Standard & Poor 500 index.
70366
Absolutely no!  That is the quickest to go banckrupt.\nYou can start by buying index fund, or sector fund.\nMutual is a good way to invest too.
557091
the "best" investment you could make has to do with your knowledge and experience with investing, and by the sounds of it you dont have much of either. I wouldnt invest in any stocks or bonds, or anything with high risk until you know about tax laws, financial institutions, etc. Educate yourself first or blow all your money away. Trust me there are plenty of people out there waiting to take your money away from you.\n\nI would suggest a ROTH IRA, since your principal is not taxed, and has a very high return for younger people over a long period of time. \n\nAnother thing u could do with your money is start a business and sell it once its successful (for a few million dollars or whatever it happens to be worth) -- but like investing you should educate yourself first.\n\nAnother best bet as a non-experienced investor is to start out safe in Money Market accounts that have near 5% interest rates like ING direct orange account, or HSBC Money Market Savings account as some examples.\n\nThe CD thing sucks becuz they tie your money up for long periods of time whereas money market savings accounts are easily liquidible.\n\nOh i should mention also that ROTH IRA has no penalities on withdrawls you make against the principle, and you can use money from a ROTH IRA to buy your first home too!
476440
I can advice you.\n\nI cannot tell you what you should look for because I don't know what types of investments are you looking or how much money you have or for how long are you going to invest or how old are you and other factors.\n\nING is an Excellent Insurance Company and they are currenly offering the third highest interest rate in the United States of America.\n\nThe second highest interest rate is HSBC with 4.80%
356050
Don't try to time the market.  There's a ton of money in the global financial market.  Just periodically invest by your asset allocation percentage.
536193
i suggest to invest currently in gold as best option or if u want ur investment more secure then invest in insurance unit link plans
311039
This is a vague question.  What do you mean when you say what is the best.  If you mean safest, most have insurance guarding you on your investments if the financial service and/or trust company were to go bankrupt.  If you mean, honest, depends on what you are looking for.  Are you interested in one of these places to manage your money?  Manage your trust account?  \n\nIf you can be more specific, I will help you. \n\nGood luck!
261930
This question has different answers for different people.  It will depend on your risk tolerance and time horizon.  If you have a short time horizon and low risk tolerance then a money market fund would be the answer.  If you have a long time horizon and low risk tolerance then a bond fund may be the answer.  And if you have a long time horizon and a high risk tolerance, then a stock fund would probably be the best choice.  Keep in mind that proper diversification is always best.
69558
None.  Use a debit card, save money, invest.
47967
It depends on how much risk you want and how much you are hoping to gain. \n\nThe safest would be CDs. Check ingdirect.com, Their 18 month CDs are yielding about 4.5%\nhttp://home.ingdirect.com/products/products.asp?s=OrangeCD\n\nIf you are willing to take some risk you can invest it in mutual funds or even stocks. Investing in the market is more risky but can provide greater returns.
323074
US has the most money.\nPeople are always nice for money.
296107
There is not enough information to answer your question.\n\nHow much is a large lump sum?\nWhat is a good investment?\n\nThe highest return is always the highest risk \nThe minimal risk is always the lowest return (Goverment Bonds get you 4% a year with minimum risk)\n\nYou can start by opening a brokerage account at ameritrade.com\n\nDrop me a line if you need detailed information about investments in the stock market.
905594
It depends on how risky you want to be.  Do you feel confident about your ability to play the stock market?  If so you could take a chunk and invest it there.  If you are more conservative then I would suggest an ING account or a CD with the highest return of investment.  Usually a 12 month CD will carry a higher return but you cannot access this money easily without paying a penalty.  So if you want a good return with access to your money either a money market or an ING account would probably work best.  Happy investing!
565796
Only a very few people know the best form of investment, and regrettably I am not one of them. \n\nThere are however good forms and bad forms, and I do know something about them.\n\nLet's discuss bad forms first. That is a little easier. Speculative stocks. They are very bad forms. There has been a lot of money made on speculative stocks, but not by the average investor. The loss to gain ratio is about 50 to 1. So the odds are against you big time. \n\nOver priced stocks. Look what happened to all those investors that bought Microsoft at 60 a share, Intel at 80 a share, and so on. \n\nNow what about good investmets.\n\nThose are sound companies selling at a reasonable price with good prospects of earnings growth. \n\nSome examples: major companies in China. That economy is growing 3 times as fast as the U S economy. If you have no idea of what Chinese stock to invest in, pick a mutual fund that invests in Chinese stocks. \n\nPetroleum companies. Demand for petroleum will continue strong and supply is not keeping up.\n\nBlue chips that are out of favor. HD, MSFT, INTC, CSCO, C, BAC. WMT???
618903
It depends what you mean by the best. If you like ETFs try India Fund Inc. (IFN)
344339
The first poster is correct. Bonds (or Treasury Bills, T-Bills) are the safest investment. They are considered risk free, and they're currently paying in the high 4-5% range.\n\nHowever, you can get a better return for just a slight increase in risk... you don't need to be entirely conservative.
1878
It's been mathematically "proven" that you can get high returns AND reduce your risk by buying diverse high-risk investments which have no correllation.\n\nAlso, Equities (Stocks) have had some of the best returns historically, and are still considered a very good investment.\n\nOf course you don't want to be STUPID about it and buy the riskiest stuff possible.  Get some AGGRESSIVE mutual funds with low fees (Vanguard has some).  Spread your money around to highly aggressive funds that have little correllation.  For instance, some Domestic High Growth, some Foreign aggressive growth, maybe some Real Estate Trust Funds, some High Tech, Some Health Care.\n\nLook at the historic returns of the sector and the fund.  Look too at the risk vs. return.  If, as you say, risks don't matter, then go for high return funds, with a reasonable risk.  And spread it around - but make sure you spread it around to different TYPES of investments - all that are aggressive, but some that move contrary to each other (like foreign vs domestic, or REITs vs Stock)