Archive for February, 2009

by Samantha Asher

If there’s one thing you change about yourself right now, make it that you’ll start investing. Stop throwing your money way on junk you don’t need and that you’ll never use and start buying investments such as stocks and bonds. Don’t waste your money. Make it work for you. Save and invest. That’s the best advice I can give you.

If you know nothing about stocks, bonds, or investing, you are not at a total loss. There is an easy way to invest without having to get a degree in finance or without having to pour over financial books for months. If you no nothing about investing, start simple.

Stock investing takes research, and lots of it. Most people aren’t able or willing to put in the amount of time it takes to start effectively investing in stocks. That’s okay, you don’t have to put that much time into it. You can invest in mutual funds. A mutual fund is when many people put their money together and invest it all together. A professional money manager chooses the stocks and bonds to invest in, which ensures diversification.

With that much less work it must cost a fortune, right? Not at all! You can spend a fortune, but you can also save by choosing no-load funds over load funds which charge no fees. They charge no fees, but they can still earn you a lot of money. Usually the extra fees the load funds charge cancel out any extra gain, if there is any.

Load funds are often not a better investment. They may do great one year and bomb in the next. Don’t look at what they ‘say’ they’ll get you, go for a fund that is reasonable and has had year after year with good gains.

There is risk in investing in stocks and bonds. Diversification will help reduce that risk and this can best be achieved through mutual funds. With a mutual fund you can be invested in hundreds of different stocks and/or bonds. Even with just a little bit of money, you can get started investing in a mutual fund.

Diversifying your stock will decrease risk because if one stock goes down, it’s likely another stock will go up and at least offset it. Basically, you are reducing the risk that your entire portfolio will decrease in value.

You can invest with as little as $1,000 and you can get started in investing with little to no experience if you choose to go with mutual funds. Don’t waste your time researching stocks, invest in mutual funds instead.

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by Jack White

Beginner investors can be quite confused as to where to invest their money. So what is the best bet, stocks or mutual funds for young investors? In this article, I describe the difference between the two and where you can get find great stocks and mutual funds for young investors.

When you invest in stocks, you have ownership of a particular company. With mutual funds, you have ownership of a few companies. This provides you with much more diversity in your investment. Not only this, the mutual fund can also include investments in bonds or cash that allows your mutual fund to make subsequent stock purchases. For these reasons, mutual funds for young investors may be the way to go.

One mistake that young investors make, is that they assume their investment is completely safe. An investment in a mutual fund is an investment in the market, the same as a stock investment, which fluctuates. Your mutual fund may lose value. However, mutual funds for young investors are still the safer investment alternative.

You now know the difference between stocks and mutual funds for young investors and have decided to invest. With the current technology, brokers have made it extremely easy to invest from home. There are hundreds of websites up that do not charge to start a new account. Do your research though, because different companies do have different trading rates for mutual funds for young investors. Usually the minimum investment is $1000.

Mutual funds for young investors is what I reccomend in closing. Over the course of your life, mutual funds for young investors will bring you higher returns. By the time you reach retirement age, you will have set yourself up with a beautiful nest egg.

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by Kay Riter

If you ever want to retire or if you want to be rich someday, you will need to make your money grow. The best way to do this is through investing. By investing, you won’t have to save as much to make more money, or you can make more money faster and maybe even retire early.

You do your research. You read countless of books on investing in stocks, bonds, commodities, mutual funds, and currency. You learn how to become rich by investing, you learn how to research stocks, and you learn how to retire young. You bookmark the right investing websites to stay up to date and are now ready to get started.

Now what do you do? You’ve done you’re research and you know what you want to invest in, but how do you start investing? Where are the brokers that need to buy you stocks? With the internet, it is now easier than ever to get started buying stocks and investing.

If you are looking for a great online brokerage firm, I recommend Sharebuilder. It’s been more than 2 years now that I have been buying and selling stocks through Sharebuilder, and I couldn’t be happier. The sign up process is easy. All you have to do is fill out a few forms online and then send in some copies of ID. After that your account will be confirmed and your ready to start investing.

Sharebuilder has many great features that will protect your money. When it comes to using money and credit cards online, some people get a little nervous. You don’t have to be with Sharebuilder because they are very thorough with security. You don’t use a credit card, you just connect your checking account to transfer money whenever necessary. For added security, there is validation necessary whenever you transfer money or make a trade.

Sharebuilder has so many more great benefits in addition to security. You don’t have a minimum amount to invest so you could invest as little as five bucks if you wanted to. Also, you can invest for as little as $4 per investment. That is one of the lowest available which makes Sharebuilder great for any buy and hold investor.

If you’re new to investing, you might not feel comfortable choosing stocks on your own to buy. If this is you, you can choose to invest in any of Sharebuilder’s mutual funds instead. With a mutual fund, you just send in your money and an fund manager pools it with other investors’ money and chooses stocks to buy for you.

It’s never too early to start investing. Ten, twenty, or thirty years from now, you will be very happy that you started early. Don’t worry about your future. Just do what you need to and stay on top of things.

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