I am interested in investing in the stock market while stocks are low, but don't have any experience.?

I have the money to invest, I'm just not sure what to invest in. Any help?

If you have already decided to invest in the stock market, the best place to start for novices is a broad-based index mutual fund or ETF.

If you have no brokerage account set up, the easiest way to do this is to set up an account with a company like Vanguard and invest in their S&P 500 index mutual fund, which is invested in 500 large US companies, or their 'total market index fund', which invest in small, medium and large companies.
http://www.vanguard.com

If you would prefer to do it via a brokerage, there are equivalent ETF (exchange-traded funds) that are very similar. This approach is only slightly more complicated (not complicated at all, really) and offers some minor technical advantages.

I found this article that tells new investors how to get started with the stock market and why it is a good idea to invest now. Pretty informative, I think I might try it too! Sounds easy enough...

Do you have an account with a brokerage firm? It would help though you can go to one of the offices of any reputable brokerage firms and make the transaction.

Picking the right stock is the key to any investors' success. If you don't have any experience in analyzing financial data of a company, it's very dangerous to get just Yahoo Answers to buy stocks.

If you have an account, ask one of the brokers to help you in picking the stocks. If you don't have one, you might be better served by buying mutual funds or ETF's (exchange traded funds) that are managed by professionals instead of trying to pick an individual stock. Although you pay management fees within the funds, it might be cheaper than making a huge mistake and loosing the money in the stock.

When opening a brokerage account, make sure you pick a brokerage firms having "brick and motar" branches not just online brokerage. For a discount brokerage firms where trading fees are cheap, choose a company like Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade. If you have a lot of money to invest, open an account with a company like Goldman Sacks, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley where many professional and famous dealers work to assist rich clients. The trasaction fees are more expensive than discount brokerage firms.

Everything in a volatile market is risky. Ask yourself these questions: Can I afford to lose the money that I am investing? Is this money set aside for retirement? Is there a better investment for the amount of money that I have that will increase without the risk of loosing the principal amount?
Have you considered a market based annuity, mutual fund, or buy a reduced property that the banks have repossessed and turn it into rental income.
If you are sure you want to invest in the stock market then play with it first without investing real money. Pick some good stocks and stay away from things you don't know about. Forget penney stocks.
There will always be good buys out there, so don't rush into it. Read up on the stocks you are considering and watch how they do during the down times.
You can join one of the online stock traders like Ameritrade or Scottrade to go ahead and fund your account without investing until you feel ready. Then make yourself a test portfolio to watch and pretend that you invested before you actually do it. It will take a little time to set up an account and learn how to do it so don't be in a rush. Remember the market runs on Fear and Greed. If you are prone to the fear of loosing the money it will probably not be a good investment for you.

Read some books on investing first before you invest a single penny.

Stick to well known mutual funds in an industry you feel good about. That way you have less risk if your cash is being divided among different stocks picked by professionals. Also try Dollar Cost Averaging. The idea is you invest the same amount of money each month and as a result buy less stocks when the price is high and more when the stocks are low. Good luck.

Check a substantial library for a good deal of information about personal money management in general and the stock market in particular.

Ask a person in the Business and Investing section to suggest some worthwhile materials to assist you in learning how to manage personal income and assets effectively, and how the stock market works and various approaches to investing.

Is your primary interest the U.S. portion of the worldwode stock market? Are you interested in investing in stocks of companies based in other countries? The huge U.S. debt load, both gov't. and private, puts their economy at risk ... and their recent printing of money puts their currency at risk.

Do you have plans in place to deal financially with unexpected emergencies, e.g. blow a motor in your car, unexpected illness, getting laid off (whether short-term or for much longer) without chewing your fingernails? It's important to have money available to cover such costs.

Have you thought about what time frame you wish to follow as you invest?

If you are looking at under at least 3 years, investing in stocks is a risky game, for stock prices don't keep growing all of the time ... sometimes they run at nearly the same price for extended periods and sometims they go down, that for possibly extended periods, as well, though usually they drop fast ... and, often, hard.Can you see your $1,000. invested slip in value to $750. or so, without getting all bent out of shape? And, most of all, without selling out too low?

It can be quite difficult, unless you have other potential sources of income that you could use and leave that investment running for a longer period than you'd originally considered. It's better to give yourself a 5-year period, better yet, 10 years or more.

What is/are your personal field(s) of interest, e.g. training, employment, etc. Do you know of some companies in a related field which are doing well and appear to have a bright future?

The library person can show you how to check various companies in some depth.

Check as to the availability of the Value Line stock advisory system, mainly for U.S.-basedstocks, as one example. Quite likely a loose-leaf book with much information about a large number of stocks, including an evaluation of many if not all.

It will give you a picture of what the company is about, how it is doing and give some indication of its prospects, I think.

I haven't checked it for some time, so my info is not current.

Some people who lack information in depth about different companies choose to invest using mutual funds.

I prefer equity-based (i.e. owning companies) ones, as they are the ones that potentially produce good growth ... but that's often over the long term: in the past couple of years, their values have gone down. Also, you lose some control. If other owners get scared when prices go down and cash out, the manager must sell assets to pay them off, even though they must sell at lower than the real value of those stocks.

Of the thousands of mutul funds available, very few managers are able to outperform the stock market averages on a consistent basis, parly because of those fees which they charge - in the U.S., often about 1.5% or more annual rate of the total asset ... in Canada, more often 2.5% or more. And they get theirs, whether or not there they produce growth.

If you'd like broad exposure to a branch of the market, e.g. financial, oil and gas, metals amd minerals, consumer goods, transportation, etc. you can buy Exchange-Traded Funds that give you a piece of a large number of stocks in whichever of those and other fields ... and they charge much less than 1% management fee, much lower than the fee rates charged by mutual fund managers.

Having been investing for over 40 years, and having had training that stockbrokers take, I prefer to buy individual stocks - then I don't have to pay managers anything (may be able to keep their fee in my pocket, if I can equal their growth rates). Now, nearing age 80, I have about 80% of my assets in stocks and equity-based mutual funds. And much of the rest is in a mutual fund that deals in (much safer Canadian) ... mortgages!

I bought a stock (petroleum pipeline) about 15 years ago for $26.00 a share and it has split 2:1 twice since, so I now have 4 shares for each one that I bought. The price per share last year got up to $40.00, and just under $55.00 this summer, then down to $35.01closing price on Oct. 10, back up to $41.22 now, paying $1.29 dividend, 3.1% at this price, but lower as price rises. The dividend rate has risen over the years, commensurate with the stock price ... and in Canada is taxed at a much lower rate than most income.

Plus - I don't have to pay tax on the stock price increase, from the original $26.00, divided by 4 due to the stock splits equals $6.50, to $40. last year was 13.85% annual compound growth rate ... on Oct. 10, at $35.01, was 12.78% annual compound growt

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