Better Investing a 100k dollars

Don't bother with mutual funds unless you're trying to crush the market, and even then, probably stay away. Just invest in the S&P500 yourself, you can do so through an etf such as SPY. Generally, investors do a bond and stock split, but I suspect it's because they need lower volatility in case they need to use the money or they have certain milestones like child's college that they need to use the money. I personally don't bother with doing a stock and bond split. The way I see it is that the S&P500 is as safe as it gets. If it drops, then I can just wait, because eventually it will rebound. And if it doesn't rebound, that's indicative of another big problem. (The 500 largest market cap companies are collectively doing something significantly wrong AND investors continue selling without buying these companies back). If you really want to learn investing, rather than earning money, I would recommend that you put 90% of your portfolio in the S&P500, and trade 10% of it on fundamental or technical or whatever you heard on stocktwits / some random forum / a friend who's just guessing. Some people enjoy the thrill of gambling, and I respect that, just don't bet too much of your portfolio. Occasionally, I'll put 1 - 2% in high risk / high reward type situation. For example, I currently have about 1% of my portfolio in SWN, HCLP, and MMLP. But the rest of it is spread out accross the S&P500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq, with a heavier weighting on the S&P500. In terms of options, I'd stay away from them, unless you understand what they are and you have a really good reason that has a very high chance of coming true. Options have an expiration date, and you can't just hold onto them and hope they rebound. Of course, you could sell covered calls to help you get to your goal. If you only care about getting say 7% a year, and don't care if you miss out on getting like 10%, then selling covered calls could be a good idea. It'd be even better if there was a high implied volatility during the period that you sold them, but you don't need to worry too much about this. Learning how to invest takes a very long time, so you shouldn't risk your life savings doing so. You can take it 1 step at a time. Reading a lot regarding current events and their impacts on trading sentiment and economic indicators would also help to give you a big picture.