One more thing I should mention, for GP's sake, the other major pitfall is the brokers fee per trade. There are discount brokers who may charge as little as 4-5 dollars per trade but make sure and read between the lines on what they are offering. It may be limited to a certain number of introductory trades or it may demand that you make a minimum number of trades per quarter. At any rate, making many trades can easily eat away at your account balance just from the brokerage fee's. Most of the larger brokers seem to be sticking with the standard 19.95 dollars per trade for average traders. They all have lesser fees for frequent traders. Good Luck.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

If you don't know anything about investing, I would recommend hooking up with USAA and getting yourself a Roth IRA. My god, everyone should have a Roth because you don't have to pay anything. Also, don't waste your time with savings accounts that pay out .0% - 3% on average, put your money into a money market account that always pays 3% minimum, sure they have a minimum amount needed in the account (usually 3,000) scared of 3k, NO BIG DEAL all you need to do is deposit $50 dollars a month into it... Personally I use everything I listed above. My accounts are all with USAA, Money Market and Roth IRA (in emerging markets, paying 19% over 5 years) I also contribute 10% to TSP (against my financial managers advice) into the I fund which takes a hit from time to time but pays out over 15% the last 10 years b/c I am prolly going to roll it over into my next federal job. For a new investor with TIME to spare take some risks because that is the only way that you are every going to make any money.

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To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge. -Henry David Thoreau

Knowledge is power.

I agree with you. A roth ira is one of the best deals. There was a law passed this year that will allow those with a regular ira to roll it into a roth ira, after they pay the tax from the regular ira for those that were tax deferred but, no irs penalty would be due as it would be for a normal cash out if done before the required age. I think I read that it won't be allowed until 2010, though it has been passed. Hopefully it will be left alone, you can never tell from congress to congress what they will change.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

Link to an article by Mogambo Guru : http://www.investmentrarities.com/bestofmg.htmuru:

Investment Rarities is a web sight with many good articles about financial and economic matters by a host of good people.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

http://www.investmentrarities.com/bestofmg.htm

previous link copy dropped htm. this one should work.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

Wish I had found this thread earlier! (maybe I'd waste less time in the arcade )

My first few years in the Army, I considered myself fiscally savvy because I used the TSP and managed to let my extra cash sit untouched in a savings account. I was drawing about .05% interest and thought I was doing well. What an idiot I was. I think it was about a year ago when I was watching Bulls and Bears on Fox News when the epiphony came. I pulled my money out and started buying up stocks. I'll check out the Motley Fool every once in awhile, and I also use morningstar.com, but my main source of info is Yahoo Finance. I use Scottrade.com to buy online. 7 dollars per transaction. Not too bad if you stay in for the long haul. Its cost prohibitive if you're trying to get in/out for the fast buck though.

Best advice about stocks I've heard is from Warren Buffet. Buy stock in products you know and use. A personal anecdote: We had a baby in August, and I noticed that Carter's seemed to be the most popular brand of kid's clothing out there, so we bought that. Its done really well for us so far, and continues to rise. Plus, Xmas is still around the corner...

P.S. Mutual funds are easy to get into, but watch out for big commissions when you sell!

-Craig

Carters-- a decent company with good year over year growth. Kind of a high PE ratio but as long as the market supports it, no problem. It was under performing the S&P 500 for awhile but it looks like it has been on a climb to meet or maybe beat the S & P. can't beat Buffets sound advice, that is for sure. Here's to profting like a bull with the saavy caution of a bear. (is there such a thing?) The TSP isn't bad for a future safety net, unless that is where your only discretionary cash resides, too many temptations to make the cash grow, stay on top of it and good luck!

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

here is a link to a good article that puts the real value versus the nominal value of the dow30 in perspective: http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/ed...2006/0929.html

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

A lot of food for thought in the article at this link:
http://www.financialsense.com/editor...2006/1009.html

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

Just announced yesterday: "Carters 3rd-Quarter Profit Triples"

Boo-ya, so far so good on that one. Unfortunately I took a hit on Baidu(BIDU) this week. The "Chinese Google"'s CTO resigned this week. They say the reasons were personal. My portfolio took it personally. Still trying to diversify into some other asian tech companies though.

Mr. Rader: I just want to say one word to you -just one word.
Ben: Yes sir.
Mr. Rader: Are you listening?
Ben: Yes I am.
Mr. Rader: 'LED's.'
Ben: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. Rader: There's a great future in LED's. Think about it. Will you think about it?
Ben: Yes I will.
Mr. Rader: Shh! Enough said. That's a deal.

Borrowed a bit from The Graduate on that one. Maybe that should read OLED's...