Lux Investing - What should a beginner investor invest in?

What should a beginner investor invest in?

I am 18 and going off to college next year. I would like to start investing my money. I have a significant amount of money in the bank for someone of my age with very little debt. I would like to start investing with Sharebuilder . I would be willing to take a higher risk to grow a chunk of money faster over the next 5 years. But also I would like to invest in lower risk ETF's or stocks to grow money for over the longer term. Any recommendations? Should I make one larger investment now or smaller monthly investments? Thanks for everyones info. I guess I should have put that I was looking more for specific stocks/etf's to invest in at this time. I have actually done a lot of research prior to today about investing in general.

Public Comments

It is generally better to get in and stay in. It's not "timing" the market but it's "TIME IN" the market that matters...over the long term. You have time on your side...so use it. Buy frequently and sell reluctantly. Oh...and a good way to start is an index fund. Go on-line and go with a no load / no help site. Get comfortable and then expand your portfolio. Good luck, I hope this helped. You are WAY ahead of the game...starting at your age. Good for you.
NOT one cent. NOT one dime NOT one dollar. No amount of money. In the beginning you INVEST YOUR TIME AND LEARN HOW: A] the stock market works. B] to invest in many, many various ways. C] to properly trade D] many other concepts and aspects. Beginning or novice ['newbies"] investors and traders ALWAYS make mistakes. In fact, throughout a person's avocation or hobby to do trading, he/she will make mistakes. In the very beginning, you READ AND LEARN about the market and how it works: Read "Investing for Dummies" As you are reading and doing research about the investments you are interested in, sometimes you'll come across a financial or investment term you never heard before. You can usually find excellent, easy-to-understand definitions of many financial and investment terms by going to Investopedia’s dictionary. http://investopedia.com is a free site. It’s recognized by Y! A as a "Featured Knowledge Partner". It probably won’t be long when you’ll feel you’re ready to invest your hard-earned money. Before taking that step, you really should do research about what you are investing in. It also has a free, paper trading platform. You can set up a virtual account and almost trade as though you were trading with real money. http://finance.yahoo.com is also recognized by Y! A as a "Featured Knowledge Partner" The thought processes are: 1] to have more successful trades than failing trades. 2] to minimize the losses of those losing trades. 3] "To live to trade another day." Having enough money in the trading account to return to the market. ALL this is accomplished by a few true expressions used on Wall Street: Some trading expressions come to mind: A] "On Wall Street there aren't any gifts." No one gives anyone else anything - not even stock tips. B] BUlls [BUyers] earn money. BEars [SEllers] earn money. Pigs get fat. Hogs [Greedy Traders] get slaughtered. They lose the money in their trading accounts. C] "Trees don't grow to Heaven. Neither do stocks or any other investments." In other words: What goes up, MUST come down! D] "Plan your trade. THEN trade your plan!" Have a trading plan with rules for that plan for each strategy. Thanks for asking your Q! I enjoyed answering it! VTY, Ron Berue Yes, that is my real last name!
The first investment you should make is in yourself and the first sound investment to make is in an education. Educate yourself about the various markets, the products traded in the markets and what do you want to do in the market - be a trader, or an investor (you can do both) Any one with a few dollars and a half functioning brain can jump into a given market and but product. But a smart individual would study about where they are going and what they will be doing when they get there. Visit all the financial web sites, Yahoo Finance, MSN Money, Zacks,Com, Schaeffer's to see what the pros's think and where they think you should go, Learn money management before you buy anything, make sure you a set of rules in place for trading/investing, Remember never but an investment unless you know when and where you are going to get out. You question address many particulars, experience tells me you not even there yet, but good luck. .
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The more you invest at a time the higher return. If you buy a ETF you should buy another sector ETF to balance the risk of the ETF sector you purchase. The only reason to invest with nickels and dimes is if you have no money and only plan to play investment games. There is little way to gain anything as a Sharebuilder. Buying a fund allows one to reinvest yields in the fund all by it's self. You need a good investment to get a yield worth investing.
It sounds like you want specifics. Get strong companies with good dividend payouts so if the market continues down you will still get the good payouts while you wait for the capitol gains. Examples.....GE close to 4%, VZ today's price yields 5%, T yielding about 4.6%, PFE yielding about 6%, IWA (a little riskier) yielding close to 10%, GSK yielding well into the 5%s. Other than IWA these companies in my opinion are rock solid and way oversold. Good luck and good hunting!
Hello, I also had a similair problem as you have. I had a good amount of money, and wanted it to grow. So I looked around on the internet to find something that is: 1) giving me great returns towards a relatively small risk 2) Professional people who know what they where doing with my money. I'm glad to say I finally found a moneymanager who is capable of giving me good returns and give me a great support. On this blog you can follow up all the results that he is making: http://my-robottrader.blogspot.com/ My money is working for me, in a little over two months I already have a ROI of 74%. So you don't hear me complaining! Annyway if you would like to get in touch with my moneymanager to have some more information feel free to contact me you can send an email to me at derrekmay at gmail.com. Then I'll give you the email adress of my moneymanager Hope this has helped you!