How should I invest $18,000?

I'm 18, going to college, but I won't need the money during my four years in college because i got scholarships and my parents are paying for the rest. I got $1000 in the checking account and $2000 in Money Market Savings account. I'm going to have a part time job on ampus so I'll use that as allowance money. So I want to know how much I can invest with $18, 000 in about 4 years.
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btw, i'm going to the bank to talk to someone, but i just wanted to know what others thought of the situation. also, could anybody really explain what a mutual fund is in simple terms?

There are many people just like you that are, or were looking to invest and those that did bought Mutual Funds and/or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). One purpose of mutual funds is to help investors like you, who are either just entering the investment world or who have no investing experience.

Once you feel you at least have an understanding of investments you should look into ETFs which are similar to mutual funds but are traded on the exchanges.

Mutual Fund companies as well as ETFs have an entire array of products many will fit your needs. You can go to the MSN.Money website
http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp it has an entire section on mutual funds and Exchange Traded Funds. Read about the various products and in doing so you will be getting investment ideas and at the same time educating yourself about investing.

You could also contact the funds companies for more information. I have found that Vanguard & Fidelity can meet your needs for mutual funds. The service and information they provide is all free and you will find it helpful

i realy dont sugest you should ask these questins here, 18k is alot of money, someone might ruin your life

Here is what you need to do:
- 50% in stocks
- 20% in options
- 20% in Mutual fund
- 10% in Money market CD

P.S: do not invest your money through the bank, make sure to open a brokerage account with a discount broker (Less cost in fees to trade). You might also want to talk to a research analyst to give you some instructions on what stocks to trade. Do not put too much of your money in mutual fund, they do not bring you much return on your money....
Good luck...(frank_oneil2003@yahoo.com)

I´ve been investing for more than 20 years and trading for almost 14, and I can tell you that if you want to make BIG and FAST profits, I recommend you trading rather than investing, trading can help you to go from rags to rich.
If you are investing, you must have already achieved some degree of financial success, long term stock investing and FOREX can help you become much richer than you are today.

My experiences as a Nasdaq Market Maker, Head trader of several brokerage firms, and currently as a professional trader and private hedge fund manager, I can suggest you that:
We trade because we want quick, short term profits on a consistent basis. We want to cash flow the market. Milk it like a cow.

Make consistent, small, short term gains rather than trying to hit a home run on every trade. Don't ever forget that.

Don't marry a stock, marry the idea of making money trading stocks. That's the only way to do it.

For me "All stocks are equally worthless”

I don't hold on to any illusion that the stock market will continue to go up and provide a nice retirement for me.

I could care less which way the market goes. It's irrelevant to me if the market goes higher, crashes or moves sideways for the next 50 years. I really could care less. Stocks are just four letters with two prices next to them that I use to make a living trading.

Trade ONLY when you have a clear, easy and identifiable advantage, because without a CLEAR EDGE your odds of success are NO better than a flip of a coin… That´s why so many new traders (and investors) lose money.

Take a look at any daily chart of any index or stock and you'll probably see the most volatility and the biggest opportunity for profit during the first Hour of the stock market's opening.

The popular thinking and conventional wisdom is that you should wait about an hour before you start trading.

But if you do, you'll miss the big, fast moves that stocks make as all the amateurs let their emotions out through their online accounts, usually right after they read some news headline or hear Maria Bartiromo go off about a stock on CNBC.

It's easy to see why trading the open is the market's prime time for profiting from other online traders.

The market's open is very volatile - that is the perfect environment for LARGE, FAST profits.

Learn to trade as a professional Market Maker, not as an emotionally driven amateur trader or investor with few thousand dollars in an account at Etrade.

There isn't any other time during the day or any stock you can invest in, that can make you 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 or more points in minutes OTHER than during the first hour the stock market is open. That's why I love trading the open so much.

I trade only when I have an edge and that means "only the first hour the market is open".

If you are a beginning trader, you can give yourself an unfair advantage in the market trading this way.

I can carry on for hours on how to make money trading online, but if you ask me:

"What is your best advise?

I will say:

Give yourself a BIG favor and go to this "Top Secret" site and learn how to get by yourself the BEST stocks that will make the largest and fastest day trading profits you´ve ever seen.

www.onehourtrading.com

After you review this site you won´t need any system, strategy, book, software, guru or mentor to tell you what to do, you will be able to profit HUGE every day.

Besides, you´ll learn:

• The right amount of money to start trading…
• The best Online broker out there…
• Learn how to enter and exit a trade in seconds making Huge profits…
• Make more money than most day traders simply by trading one hour a day!!!
• How to reduce stress, limit risk and stay disciplined like a Pro.
• The 4 basic rules you should know, that every successful trader know, and amateurs don´t even imagine.
• How to trade against the amateurs and avoid like the plague doing it against the professionals , and why this will put you ONE STEP AHEAD of all traders.
• What causes more devastating trading loses than any other factor... and... How to avoid this pitfall! (Even savvy traders often fall victim to this! )
• Not to spend most of your day in front of a computer dealing with complex charts, software or technical analysis.
• Learn how to read the market´s open to make a huge profit just a few minutes after the opening bell.

All this and a lot more…

Good luck and good trading,

John Fontaine

the best bet and the most secure would be to open up a high interest "CD".

You can set the terms, where you can't touch the money for a certain amount of time, and it will collect the highest amount of interest, for certain.

FOREX would be the fastest way for unexperienced 18 yr old to lose all money.
Better invest in Europe (8% CD).
With initial $18,000 you will have $24,489 after 4 years.

NOTE: I don't need your money but you may contact me for a good advice.
I wish you success in your investments!

Look into mutual funds. I recommend Vanguard and Fidelity. Look into putting third in an index fund, a third in small cap and a third in a foreign stock fund. Congratulations on getting such a great head start in life.

Get a referral from a friend or relative for a financial adviser. Then make a plan with the adviser for where you want to be in four years when you graduate from college. Will you need all you money then for you own company, or will you be getting a job and not touch your investments at all, or somewhere in between? How much risk do you want to take, are you an aggressive person that wants to risk money for potential larger returns, or are you more concerned with steady growth and not as much risk. All investments have risk so learn what the risk is before putting your money anywhere. If you don't have any one with a good financial adviser, email me and I will refer you to one.
Now a mutual fund, is a pooling of money, lots of people deposit their money into the fund, giving the manager of the fund lots of cash to implement his ideas to get better returns than if you invested yourself. This pooling of money gives you diversification, the manager can buy many stocks where you were limited in how many you bought based on the funds available, and a professional makes the decision when to buy and sell stocks in the portfolio.
That is he basic answer, understand that there is a lot more to it and an financial adviser can explain a lot more. Like a good doctor, or lawyer, a good stockbroker is worth his weight in gold or oil, so find one first.

$1,000 + $2,000 = $3,000 so I am confused. Where is the other $15,000 coming from?

Anyway, at your age I would definitely be considering some high yield high(ish) risk type mutual funds. Don't go conservative, especially since you won't really miss the money in the short term. For the past year I have been listening a lot to Jim Cramer and have actually been making decent money even with the poopyness of the market.

I say take some risks and GET INVOLVED. Don't just give your money to some financial guru and let him do "something" with it. You will have plenty of time between bong hits and beer runs in the next 4 (5) years to learn all about how and where to put your money. Have fun with it!

Considering this market and your need, keep it in the bank.

probably a lot on me. just hand it here and i'll do the rest. it's more of an investment in happiness and doing the right thing. so just hand it over now. hand it! hand it!

What I would do is put about 80% in Treasury Bills (safe, low-risk, low-return), and put 20% in a cash money market. I would dollar-cost average my investments (a set amount each month, so you are buying at all different price levels) into an S&P 500 index fund. Over time when your 20% cash gets low, you can start pulling out of the Treasury Bills to get more cash to keep dollar cost averaging, but it just ensures that the money is safe and is getting a decent yield until you are ready to invest it.

Make sure the index fund is low-cost and there are no hidden fees with your broker. By buying the index, you are getting instant diversification, and also you won't have the extra capital gains tax everytime you sell a stock for a profit.

With $18,000, you would want to invest about $375 each month over the course of 4 years. Find a good broker, shop around, look for low fees combined with experience. Don't get caught up in the ones who are trying to sell you funds that will beat the market.... indexing is the way to go!

If you want, feel free to e-mail me. I started investing in high school and I'm about to wrap up my sophomore year in college.

With at least 5,000 of it I would open up a Roth IRA- it is a retirement account that you can put up to 5000 a year in. If at 18 you started putting in the 5000 per year until you retired then at the time of retirement you will have over 6 million dollars because of compound interest- no joke. The best part of it is - if you need to money for something you can take it back out of your roth (which I wouldn't suggest) but you can take it out and it will be tax and penalty free. Its like a really awesome savings account. You wont be able to draw any of the interest out however until you are i believe 65.

With some of the rest of the money you can use prosper.com.

Besically you lend people money through this website and they pay you back with interest. It is all done through this company so it is really safe... if the person defaults on the loan then you do lose the money that you loaned them-but they get sent to collections to try to obtain the money and they are penalized on their credit. Let's say that you loaned 1000$ you can loan 50$ to 20 different people to minimize your risk. There is no way all 50 will stop paying the loan. The thing about this is you won't get all of your money back with all of the interest that you earned for about 3 years so if you need to money soon don't do this.. you will however make more interest using this site than you would in just about any account that you put your money in except for maybe high risk stocks. You can look at getting between 7 -12 % interest. That is hard to beat.

Other than that I would maybe recommend a long term stock once the market begins to turn around. You are young and may want to buy a house or car etc. in the next 10 years so try and keep the money as liquid as possible.

I am in a similar situation, 20 with about 12,000 to invest and I will be following my own advice. Good luck!

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