Want to start investing: Have $150 to put in each month. Best option? Maybe mutual funds? From what company?

Question

College student ready to invest finally.

Answer 1

I would suggest finding a good book on Bonds and investing in those. CDs and the likes have low risk, but they barely beat out inflation and are pretty much a waste of your time.

Answer 2

You should invest in a mutual fund company, individual stocks are to risky. That said I would do some research then invest in a mutual fund company. I like Vanguard personally but there are a few other good ones out there.

Invest in low expense ratio funds only. Do not pay more than .75% ER on a no load fund. Do not use a broker like the poster who suggested ING. The fees and the fees going forward will eat into your returns. Your young so you may be able to take more risk then someone older. A 3.75% account will not even keep you ahead of inflation. Don't go that route.

Answer 3

Unless you're working, you don't want to do an IRA. If you are, you can contribute up to either the maximum allowable by law or your total salary, whichever is lowest.

The challenge for you is minimums. Many mutual fund companies require that you start with an initial investment in the $1,000 to $3,000 range. Some companies are more flexible than that.

I would check out T. Rowe Price: http://mutualfunds.troweprice.com/index.html?phone=1908

They are known in the industry as a solid player, their funds perform well, and I believe they have a number of options where you can start with as little as $100 provided you agree to do systematic investing, i.e. your $150 per month.

You can go online and ask or call them and confirm they have the program but I'm pretty sure they do.

Hope that helps.

Answer 4

Good for you!

If you don't want to over think it, open up an IRA, or a Roth IRA if you make less that $100,000 I believe it is, and put that money in there faithfully! I would suggest opening an account with either Fidelity or Vanguard, and invest in INDEX FUNDS. Reason being is that these are the cheapest, most diversified funds you can own, and 80% or so of activally managed funds underperform these funds in the long run, so why try and fight it?

Answer 5

Do a Roth IRA through Vanguard. Use index funds - they have low expense ratios which keep costs down over time and index funds beat mutual funds over time (and thats before mutual funds hit you with the fees). There are other good companies, too like Fidelity and T. Rowe Price. Invest directly through Vanguard, if you use a broker they will charge you $50 a trade instead of the $10 they advertise for stocks. Those fees will eat you alive - learned that the hard way.

Answer 6

I would put this small an investment in something SAFE and relatively with a good return in this era of LOW interest rates. PAYPAL on the internet charges NO FEES and is currently paying 4.73 % on balances maintained in their money market account. This is FAR better than most banks today. All you have to do is identify the account by linking to a checking account. Transfers to or from checking take about 3 business days--no fees for transfers, and they credit dividend in cash last day of each month.

go to WWW.PAYPAL.COM and register

Answer 7

Congratulations. You dont need much to start and i was in the same boat not long ago. try http://goldenbullstocks.com i recommend them and i have been using them for the past year. Check them out you will be impressed!

Answer 8

well right now all stocks are risky, i have my money in growth funds and stuff and 3 months ago i lost 8K sio if i was you id put it in a savings and wait for the market to rebuild back to a decent standard then invest

Answer 9

Buy Silver Eagles,from you local coin dealer...Silver is going to go way up in price...read all about it online.

Right now it's about $14.50 an ounce, within the next 2 -3 years its going to skyrocket.

Answer 10

simple, create ira, use fidelity, and only do mutal funds, change funds every yr.