Have $10,000 in savings- Where to invest?

aicccia:

Give it me. I'll invest it for you.

On a serious note, since no investment is ever guaranteed, you should instead be asking which 10-20 funds you can diversify your money across. If you're not prepared to do the due diligence on 10-20 funds, then you're not prepared to safely invest your money.

boom.

admin:

Unfortunately the truth is at your age you should be spending that money taking LARGE risks. People here who are telling you to make 5% are either giving you advice they hear from their college professors or have little time on their hands.

No hate at all. there is a time to think about diversification and a time to try and learn and make a big move.

If you are in college you want to leverage that to make a few big plays. Why? Your signing bonus alone will almost double your worth, besides if you last in Wall Street for longer than a couple years.. 10K isnt anything. $10K mentally to you is equivalent to $1M mentally for you in 5 years or so. Think big when you're young.

There is an important saying everyone should know "Diversify to retain, Go all in to get rich".

When you're younger you can make riskier bets. Use the 7%/5%/10% rules whatever you may choose for your real savings and income. Any job you have today will be peanuts compared to 5+ years on the Street. You can save 10K in a few months in your near future.

AsianMonky:

Thanks for the answers guys - what about stocks? Can you guys chime in and name 3~5 relatively safe stocks that are likely to boom in next 1~2 years?

Vagabond85:

Go with what the other guy said and buy some no load index funds. Here's why: as alluded to you should only buy individual equities if you've got the tools or have done the research to believe that the return from that stock outweighs the volatility from owning a single name and lack of diversifications. For novices you should really stick with indices because you reduce costs and benefit from diversification. If you want to scale up and down risk, you can pick riskier/safer indices or keep money in cash. Feeling conservative: 50% cash, 50% s&p tracker. Want to take more risk? scale up to 80% s&p, 20% cash. Even more? Put the last 20% in and emerging market equities etf etc. Obviously this is just a simplistic example and this post relates more to investing newbies.

This. Also, don't just ask us to list 5 stocks for you because if you don't know why you're buying them then you likely won't know when to exit them, and that's how you lose money.

How do you buy a small biz with $1k?

.

put it into AGQ and leave it for a year.

Thank me then.

if you need to make money then i would look into other ways. In order to actually make money trading/betting/poker you need to be a bit removed from the money, otherwise you are just setting yourself up to fail.

Good traders learn techniques to trade. Some of it's skill and analysis, and the other part is luck. If you have $5000, then you could find some books to read about value stocks and how to find them.

ok are you going to be actually day trading with that 5k or investing that 5k, big difference. because if ur gonna be trying to day or swing trade, commish on 5k will eat ur account up. Try looking into retail fx trading, you can open a mini account and trade .10 standard lot sizes($1/pip) so that means if you use a 50 pip stop with 1 minilot thats only risking 1% of your account. FWIW this is how i made an income my last two years at uni. Id stay away from the equity asset class given the small amount of capital.

if ur trying to day trade, open a practice account. Trade it as you would REAL money for one year. if you can be consistently profitable for consecutive 6 months then i might consider putting real capital to work. Dont trade ur 5k right off the bat because you will loose it all. trust me when i say this.

American or Canadian? I invest / swing trade Canadian stocks. Can't go wrong with them ol' penny stocks.

BUT, never invest money that you can't afford to lose!

^Totally agree with the above.

I'm in a similar position as you. I have about the same to invest, and I'm looking 3-5 years out. I'm thinking about putting 20% in gold, 10% in silver, but after that I got nothing. Stocks are dangerous, although they'll probably march higher over the next 12 months on a weaker dollar.

CHK...Bet the ranch.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=BAC140118C00012000

Let it ride

depends on how much you are making now.

if you are a student just throw it into a 2-3 stocks that you have researched and like. if you are working def look into a roth IRA, ETFs, MFs, etc.

AMRC - Ameresco. I'd try it, a bit speculative but it could work out pretty well over the next few years.

First question that needs to be answered is what are you looking to do with 18k? Are you seeking ways to speculate or do you want to get something that's better than 0.01% interest rate for the next 24 months?

If you are going to speculate, then 18k should be enough for most brokerage to offer some kind of discounted commission or even no commission.

Then you need to consider how much time you have. While I do due diligence for living, I simply do not have enough time to do DD on companies of my personal interest. If you do have time to do research and make certain that the current price is undervalued, then great, go for those companies.

If you say no to both of the questions above, then VTI is your best friend, because unless you are paying attention to your investments, you will wake up one morning to DNDN (Aug 2011) or DMND (Feb 2012) situation.

And one more - don't seek for commission free ETFs. Their horrible bid-ask spread is usually more than sub-$10 commission.

Hi my name is Joe, looking for $18k for the make Joe look better fund.

This letter may come to you as a surprise but I really prayed to God to help me choose somebody that will be my true partner. My name is Augusto Nandu Savimbi. I am the first son of Mr. Jonas Savinbi, the leader of the UNITA movement in Angola. May be you know that my father was killed recently in Angola by the Angola Government soldiers and has been buried. Two weeks before he died (May be he know he will die) he called me and showed me a box containing US$ 35 million and some Diamond value about US$18 million. He send the box to a security company overseas in one country in the West, for safe keeping with a false name. He give me the certificate of deposit and the code number. With that I collect the box anytime I want. Now I want because my father is dead and I need the money to take care of my family left behind of about five wives and twenty five children. I am now hiding as the government of Angola look for me to kill and also the former commanders of my father want to get me also. I have to be careful of my movement that is why I need your help to get the box and keep it until I can escape and meet you and you help me invest the money in your country or where it is good.

Or put it all on red.

Mood Media

SCGLY and pray baby

If you will need it in 24 months you should put very little in equities. Put around 80% in low risk fixed-income derived ETFs.

20% precious metals 30% low risk bond funds 15% Dividend stocks 10% Tech 10% Emerging markets 15% Cash

Rebalance at extremes

Put retirement / core savings in an IRA

Go big or go home.

I was in the same position as you a couple of years ago. The minimum to get any sort of incentive from brokerage firms is typically 25k.

I would put a good 80% in equities. DOW 14000 seems not too far away and would put a chunk of that in tech stocks - semiconductor industry to be specific and the remainder in commercial banks (and MS) and consumer goods.

I am a bit biased because I am heavy on technicals and it seems the "Tech IPO frenzy" is prevailing. The groupons, pandoras,linkedins,zyngas seem like they will keep riding the train so I will long them for the short ter,

Also, when YELP goes public on Mar 2nd, put that 18k in it on day 1. Since you have less than 25k, you cant sell the same day. sell the very next day. Look at 1st and second day IPO performance for tech stocks over the last year and you will see why this trade carries zero risk.

Thank me later!

Hey Jeffskilling....might sound funny but was able to turn a little over 15k to over 100k between May 09 and December 11 :-)

I don't watch garbage like fast money...i'm calling it on fundamentals....gold is supposed to be traded as a raw material for parts, i.e. companies that purchase physical gold hedge their exposures in the futures markets....the market sentiment to pile excess cash into gold goes against this standard, i.e. inflating the price of gold because of EU uncertainty..

total gold holdings by US investors doesnt matter for shit...not sure why you even mentioned it.

I agreed with you on the treasuries bubble...you conspiracy on the fiat currency system is in itself a conspiracy.

1) how much return do you expect? 2) how risk avers are you? 3) if you looking for a midterm investment, stocks are not as "dangerous" as many ppl think. read some articles, broker reports, look at some valuations, analyze the market and you'll be pretty much on the safe side. you won't become warren buffets by investing 18k in stocks or in gold. and, probably more important as I have perceived your atitude so far, you will not lose your money. three years after the worst crisis ever, stocks have reached same levels 4) hedge your investment

there is so much money in the world that needs to be invested. I think, stocks are always a good choice.

Buy Div stocks and sell deep covered calls, easy way to get 10% a year without too much risk.