Interested in learning about investing, the stock market, etc.?

There are plenty of good websites on the basics of finance. I suspect though that much of this would make you feel a little lost since many are trying to appeal to a more sophisticated clientele.

The best place to start is a good basic book on personal finance and investing. "Personal Finance for Dummies" is a good one. Suze Orman's books are also very good.

However, in an effort to be the "best answer" here is a grotesquesly over simplified summary:

Investing simply means giving other people money that is paid back to you with earnings. You give someone a $1.00; they pay back a $1.10. In this example you earned a RETURN of 10 cents on your one dollar investment.

There are two broad classes of investments: loaning money and buying a piece of a money making enterprise. If you give someone $1.00 and they promise to pay you $1.10 in a year, you've loaned them money. If you give someone $1.00 to start a business and they promise to give you a share of their profits, you've bought a piece of a money making enterprise.

In essence all investments are variations on these two ideas.

A bond is the legal document that memorializes the fact that you have loaned money to a corporation or govenrment. When you buy a $1000 bond from, say the Federal Government, you have loaned them $1,000. They agree to pay you interest on the loan for a fixed number of years and then pay you back the $1,000 at the end. You walk away with the interest and the original $1,000.

The stock market is where people trade shares in people's businesses. If you buy a share of the Walt Disney Company, you own one part is 37 billion of the value and income of that company. These shares are bought and sold in stock markets.

One of the biggest stock markets is the NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation system). This is an electronic system for trading stocks and bonds. Like eBay on a massive scale, many millions of shares are traded on a day to day basis.

RISK is generally measured as the variation in returns you can reasonably expect. In general, people dislike risk so HIGH RISK investments often have high return. High risk generally indicates an investment where the entity you are loaning money to could go bankrupt or the value of the entitiy could evaporate.

As you might imagine, the idea of a single individual comprehending this system is scary and daunting. In order to simplify and make it easier mutual fund companies make a business out of helping individuals.

A mutual fund is a kind of collective investment. Instead of each investor buying shares in individual companies or individual bonds, mutual funds are pools of money from many investors which are then invested in a set way. For instance a fund could invest in the broad US stock market. The people invested in the fund would pool money they wanted to invest and the fund would use that cash to buy shares in a broad range of US stocks. Each investor would own a share of the assets and the income of the fund. Mutual fund companies are happy to provide you with plenty of literature on their offerings.

Mutual funds are the easiest way to get into investing but know this:

Every fund charges some kind of fee for administering the investments. Lower is almost always better.

Every fund has a investment objective. Read it and understand or don't invest.

Most funds have minimum investment requirements, so find that out before you invest.