How do you start to invest and buy stocks if you know nothing about it? whats a good place to start?

Standard investment advice is that you should invest in a diversified mix of stocks, bonds, and money market funds. You want to buy a diversified portfolio of stocks as individual stocks are too risky. Most folks have a dificult time buying a properly balanced portfoilio of stocks on their own. They will misbalance their portfolio by buying all small stocks or all growth stocks, or some other misbalanced assortment of stocks. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best to buy mutual funds. I like Vanguard.com, other people like Fidelity, TIAA-CREF, and DFA. Buy no-load, low cost funds. If you are like most people you will invest part of your money aggressively in stock funds, and part conservatively in money market funds and bond funds. Vanguard.com has an on-line questionnaire which will give you an idea of how to do "Asset Allocation," determining how much to put in each type of fund.

If your company offers a 401K plan at work, try to invest the most you can. The money grows tax free, and some companies will match your contribution. Investing in a mutual fund IRA is also a good idea. If you have children, you may want to consider a 529 plan or other college savings plan that grows tax free.

I like index funds. Because of their broad diversification, you are less likely to have a dramatic drop in value. They also have the lowest expenses. For stock funds, I would suggest putting ~70-80% of your money in the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund. and ~20-30% in a foreign stock index fund. However, there are many different opinions out there on what the best mutual funds are. Read the links below and form your own opinion.

If you have high-interest debt, like credit cards, it is best to pay this off first before trying most of the investment ideas above. You should also have 3-6 months of salary saved up as an emergency fund in a bank or money market fund before trying more risky investments.

Believing advice you get on Yahoo answers can be risky, so read these websites for further information. If you find it too confusing, contact a professional financial advisor. They will charge you significant commissions, however.

Sources:

http://www.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/planningeducation
http://www.fool.com/school.htm
http://sec.gov/investor/pubs/assetallocation.htm
http://www.diehards.org/readsites.htm
http://finance.yahoo.com/education/begin_investing
http://finance.yahoo.com/funds/basics

Asset Allocation Calculators
(Determining how much to put in stocks and how much into bonds and money markets is a personal decision depending on your financial status. These Asset Allocation questionaires give you a rough idea how to do this. I like Vanguard best, but try some of the other sites as well.)
https://flagship.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/FundsInvQuestionnaire?cbdInitTransUrl=https%3A//flagship.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/planningeducation/education
https://ais2.tiaa-cref.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects.exe/DTAssetAlcEval
http://www.ifa.com/SurveyNET/index.aspx

Web forum: http://www.diehards.org/
(Many investment web forums are overrun by scam artists. This one seems the most legitimate site.)

529 plans: http://www.savingforcollege.com

One way to get started is to get a brokerage account. (I have Charles Shcwab and Iike it.

Once you do that you can go to places like http://www.fool.com great help.

Also for a price you can ask you broker for advice.

Hope that helps.

Are you looking to start a hobby? Or are looking to grow your savings? If its a hobby you seek read, read, read. If you want to grow your money and go about your life then seek a professional investment advisor to help you. Please email me.

Beginners should never start directly with "individual" stocks. These are very hard to learn and master.

They should begin with mutual funds and index funds while they learn about how the stock market works. Much less time and risks is involved with funds.

It depends on how involved you want to get into stocks. The stock market can be a very risky environment and for normal, everyday investors like you or me.

I would strongly suggest getting into mutual funds. Mutual funds spread the risk out over many stock instead of one or a few that an indvidual would. In addition, the decisions are made by professional money managers who know what they are doing since that's what they do all day.

Depending on how old you are and your risk tolerance, you can mix the mutual funds to fit your profile and goals.

I would start contacting financial advisors who would be more than willing to help you out.

Open a brokerage account at Zecco and I will help you for FREE. (I am a Portfolio Manager with over a decade of experience in the Stock Markets)

Read "One up on Wall Street" by Peter Lynch
Read"A random Walk Down Wall Street" By Burton Makail? spelling?
Read anything you can find about Warren Buffet the greatest investor of our time.

Check out the NAIC website.
http://www.better-investing.org/Public/default

See if you can join an investment club in your area.

Get an etrade account and start small.

Talk to as many people as you can find about how they research stocks. Pick some companies that you like and research them for practice.

Create an imaginary portfolio of stocks and track them. Yahoo actually has one of the best stock portfolio and research/news features of any site around. Create a portfolio watch list in your "myYahoo" site and you'll learn and figure out the rest from there.

Good luck.

Email me for stock tips

I started an investment club back in 94 and our club has an annualized rate of return of about twice the s&p.

Start by reading the top books

Young Fabulous and Broke & Women and Money- Suze Orman

Rich Dad Poor Dad- Robert Kiyosaki

Read All those cover to cover and you will be much more enlightened.

There is a great book by Phil Town called "Rule #1". It walks a beginner through the process of finding good stocks and how to trade. It is somewhat simple, but sometimes the best strategies are. That would be a good place to start. Just like in school, you start out with the basics and then build on that.

books, magazines, classes that some of the investment houses give.school,

My recommendation is study technical analysis. Use Nicalas Darvas as a start.

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