I am 17 years old and wanna invest in stocks. I dont know much. Help?

I am 17 years old and I am really interested in getting into stocks and the market. I know very little but would love to start learning and investing really soon! Where should I start?

Thanks!

At the age of 17, I can't imagine that you have disposable income (aka income that if you lost all of it, you wouldn't care).

Generally stock market is a good long-term investment, but lately it's very volatile. If you had bought Merrill Lynch stock 3 months ago today you'd have $0 to show for it. Odds that you can put it into the markets for 10+ years is probably slim at your age.

When I was in high school I was involved in our county's stock investment challenge game. We each created a fake portfolio and played against kids in other districts all thoughtout the county. Unfortuatnely I wound up coming in second, but it taught me a LOT about investing. See if you can do those programs before stepping into the unknown.

You can go on-line and make a "watch" list at yahoo or google finance. You can start to monitor it and see if you would've lost or gained money with your investment. You need to understand the P/E ratios, yields, dividends, and a bunch of other things before you decide to make an investment... so you just have to be ready to do a lot of research and learning.

Buying stock is a contract.

Legally, a minor, cannot sign a contract.

So, you can't buy until you reach the age of majority, in most places in the US, that is 18.

But, as the other answerer said, now is not the time. We have not even begun to see the bottom of this disaster.

Save your money & buy food. Good luck to us all.

the previous answers are good, but i think it would be important for you to do some research. i'm 23 and do not own stock yet because i am not out of debt. it is much better to take the guaranteed return of paying down debt rather than the risk of the stock market.

but, when you do get your loans and stuff paid off, do some research on individual stocks if you want, but for most of us, it is better to go with good mutual funds (think about them like getting tiny pieces of lots of companies so all your eggs are not in one basket).

if you have other questions, feel free to email me at tennisbuff2007 at yahoo

It's not a good idea to invest in individual stocks. Warren Buffet once said that if you were going to buy a stock you'd better be able to write a book on the company. I don't think you will ever do that.

Here's some advice from some very intelligent people:

"A low-cost index fund is the most sensible equity investment for the great majority of investors. My mentor, Ben Graham, took this position many years ago, and everything I have seen since convinces me of its truth." Warren Buffet

"Of the 355 equity funds in 1970, fully 233 of those funds have gone out of business. Only 24 oupaced the market by more than 1% a year. These are terrible odds." Jack Bogle (2007)

"Most investors would be better off in an index fund." Peter Lynch

"Only about one out of every four equity funds outperforms the stock market. That's why I'm a firm believer in the power of indexing." Charles Schwab

"Index funds are perhaps the most underrated stock funds in existence." "Mutual Funds for Dummies"

"The fund industry's dirty little secret: most actively managed funds never do as well as their benchmark." Arthur Levitt, Chairman, SEC

"Over the long-term the superiority of indexing is a mathematical certainty." Jason Zweig, senior writer for "Money"

"The media focuses on the temporarily winning active funds that score the more spectacular bull's eyes, not index funds that score every year and accumulate less flashy, but ultimately winning, scores." W. Scott Simon, author

"I love index funds." William Sharpe, Nobel Laurete

"Indexing is for winners only." Jane Bryant Quinn, author, syndicated columnist

"Most people should simply have index funds so they can keep their fees low and their taxes down." Jack Meyer, CEO, Harvard Management

"Four years ago I was a fan of index funds. Today I am a true believer." Jonathan Clements, senior writer, Wall Street Journal

"We find that on average, active management reduces a portfolio's returns and increases its volatility compared with a static index." Vanguard Investment Counseling & Research Analysis

"They're just not going to do it (beat the market). It's just not going to happen. Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Laureate

"I was not always an obnoxious indexing zealot. Ten years of believing in and selling active management strategies in the brokerage industry made me this way." Rick Ferri,CFA, author, financial adviser

"Active portfolio management thus tends to generate lower returns and higher taxes." John Haslem, author,

"Indexing virtually guarantees you superior performance. Bill Bernstein, author, financial adviser

"Index funds save on management and marketing expenses, reduce transacton costs, defer capital gain, and control risk--and in the process beat the vast majority of actively managed mutual funds." Good & Hermansen, authors

"In every asset class where they are available. Index! Four of five funds will fail to meet or beat an appropriate index." Frank Armstrong, author, financial adviser

"With an index fund--the certainty of keeping up with the market is a very worthwhile trade-off for the possibility of beating it. Jack Brennan, CEO Vanguard

"Searching through a list of 234 domestic equity funds that have survived for 20 years, only 31 did better than the Vanguard 500 Index. That means the odds are really, really poor that any of us will do better than a low-cost broad index fund." Scott Burns, syndicated columnist

"Choosing actively managed funds is the triumph of hope over reason and experience." Larry Swedroe. author, financial adviser.

"It's just not true that you can't beat the market. Every year about one-third do it. Of course, each year it is a different group." Robert Stovall, investment manager

"Giving up the futile pursuit of beating the market is the surest way to increase your investment efficiency and enhance your financial peace of mind." Ron Ross, author and adviser.

"It is basically impossible to beat the market." Prof. Eugene Fama

"Indexing is a marvelous technique, I wasn't a true believer, I was just an ignoramus. Now I am a convert. Indexing is an extraordinarily sophisticated thing to do." Douglas Dial, former CREF portfolio manager.

"Simple buy-and-hold index investing is one of the best, most efficient ways to grow your money. Michael Lebouf, Ph.D., author

"The best plan for most of us, is to commit to buying some index funds and do nothing else." Charles Ellis, author

"With the market beating 91% of surviving managers since the beginning of 1982, it looks pretty efficient to me." Bill Miller, portfolio manager

"We should just forget about choosing fund managers and settle for index funds to mimic the market." Pat Regnier, former Morningstar analyst.

"Because active and passive returns are equal before cost, and because active managers bear greater cost, it follows that the after-cost return from active management MUST be lower than that from

Please don't be dissuaded by those negative comments: 17 is THE BEST AGE to get into investing!

1. Use this time to learn as much as you can. I highly recommend you start with the free guides at http://www.fool.com . They do a great job of explaining all the concepts in a concise and engaging way.

2. As others have pointed out, a minor cannot directly buy stock. But this is the best part: You should use this year (if no more) to play stock-picking games (using play money) and track your performance at ZERO risk.

3. Keep in mind that the current stock market situation is unprecedented in history, which will result disproportionate gains and losses in stocks. So the immediate lessons will be skewed. However, the fundamentals of the lessons learned will apply for your lifetime.

Have fun, and remember that no one can predict the market.

~olite

Wait until Wall St. recovers, in about two years or so.

The market is heading into a downturn due to the mortgage crisis. It will take at least 2-3 years to recover from that (possibly more). So your best bet right now is US Government Savings Bonds. They are the safest investment with a guaranteed return for your money.
http://directory.stocksbuyorsell.com

du yu hav job? inkum? If so open IRA. Yer under aej now, but kan still open it.
Then put munee intu mutual funds.
Yuze dollar kost averaej=send in same number dollars evree month.

i don't know if you can at 17. i thought you had to be 18, at leased, to do that. but if you can, the best thing for you to do is wait till wall st. settles all its stupid **** now. wait for the stocks to look a little better before you would buy.

whenever the economy is doing bad, its good to invest in precious medals...

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