Stock market.

[Molina]

[shamdonk]

[poker2006]

[Derk]

[poker2006]

[Tiburon]

[Derk]

[k3nt]

Yes, you can go to vanguard dot com and invest there. I have never paid a fee to invest, buy, or sell funds. I guess with a few of their funds I think there may be a small fee if you sell them within the first six months or something: funds where they don't want you to trade in and out, for whatever reason.

Stock funds (not individual stocks) are definintely the place to go if this is long-term investment money.

What I would love to do at some point, and used to do, is set up a stock mutual fund in an IRA with say $2,000, and then send them a certain amount of money every month. Say $300 per month, or whatever gets you to the maximum you can invest these days in an IRA. Make sure you're paying no transaction fees. Then every month that the market is down, you buy more shares for the same amount of money. Every month the market is up, you buy fewer shares. Over time you get a great cost basis automatically.

Or you might want to go read some investment books rather than getting advice from poker players.

[Danhdan]

What does Vanguard believe? At first they used to say, "No one can beat the market over time..." and now they say "We have a computer that can beat the market over time." Personally, I think finding someone running a mutual fund that has a better clue would be wiser.

Also, I don't mind at an early age to be thinking about stocks. My first investment was with HP because I had a calculator of their(financial one) and I thought it was well designed, plus everyone at my school had one. I tracked them for a little while, invested, and made a nice profit back about 10 years ago. Also have friends who have tried some penny stocks with a few successes.

If you want to invest, invest in something you know about. Trust me, there are good investments out there you might have a little knowledge about, you just have to think about it.

[black_knight6]

I watched a Suze Orman episode where she said - to a caller worried that her IRA stock funds were going down and that she was losing money - that markets going down is GREAT if you're in it for the long term, for the very reason that k3nt gave: long term you expect to make $$, but while it's down, you get to buy more shares!