Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Economics > Personal Finance
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 05-12-2017, 11:43 PM
 
908 posts, read 957,191 times
Reputation: 2557

Advertisements

i really do not know anything about investments but seems like there's a lot of good info here. what would you advise? Also, i don't understand acronyms of these places so please simplify your answer
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 05-12-2017, 11:49 PM
 
30,876 posts, read 36,825,967 times
Reputation: 34462
The first thing you need to do is start getting a clue about the basics:

What is a stock?

Stock

What is a bond?

Bond

What is a mutual fund?

Mutual Fund

What is an ETF (exchange traded fund)?

Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF)
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-13-2017, 09:42 AM
 
Location: Florida
6,601 posts, read 7,279,647 times
Reputation: 8128
To start find a broker/mutual fund company and open a checking account. (need to put the money to be invested someplace).
Examples would be Charles Schwab, E Trade, Fidelity, Vanguard.

These sites will also have a lot of educational material for you to read.

Since you are just starting I would look for Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) that follow the major stock indexes such as the S&P.
As you learn more you can get into diversified investments (investments in different industries or even international).

One key is that you do not panic and sell when the market hits a steep decline. It will. And it will recover.
Do not invest money you plan on spending in the next couple of years.

The broker you pick will be able to handle separate accounts for IRA's and ROTHS if your objective is retirement savings.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-13-2017, 10:37 AM
 
Location: Aloverton
6,560 posts, read 14,419,864 times
Reputation: 10164
Quote:
Originally Posted by cis_love View Post
i really do not know anything about investments but seems like there's a lot of good info here. what would you advise? Also, i don't understand acronyms of these places so please simplify your answer
Then you should look up the acronyms as you find them. There is a limit to which people can be expected to dumb it down at your request. If you don't know what an ETF is, for example, or what DJIA stands for, do some homework. Same for any other cryptic terms that may not be acronyms but that obviously mean something someone thinks you should know or learn, such as "no-load fund," "dividend," and "dollar-cost-averaging." Build your investing vocabulary. As to where you can do that, I'm pretty sure if you googled 'common investing terms,' you'd find some glossaries.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-13-2017, 07:48 PM
 
Location: Portal to the Pacific
8,736 posts, read 8,634,940 times
Reputation: 13006
I don't know more than the basics, but I learned from reading a few books recommended on the boglehead forum (google boglehead). You want to have an understanding of the different kinds of common investments like what was mentioned above and you also want to understand your time horizon and risk tolerance.

Our investments are with Fidelity and Vanguard. We have a few other custodians too, but not by choice. We used to go through a bank/credit union until I learned about fees. I was basically paying some lady 1% or more to make choices that I could easily make for myself. 1% of 100,000 is just $1,000... but what happens when my portfolio gets to $1,000,000? 1% becomes $10,000... again, for something I could easily do myself if I have the know-how.


And that's the thing... it's not hard to manage your own portfolio after you learn the basics, determine your investment timeline and risk tolerance.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-14-2017, 03:20 PM
 
Location: Capital Region, NY
2,451 posts, read 1,511,267 times
Reputation: 3515
The Coffeehouse Investor

When I began I was referenced this book. There is so much on line these days it's hard to understand what is legitimate and what is not. The book above is a good start.
Good luck!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-14-2017, 07:50 PM
 
Location: Portal to the Pacific
8,736 posts, read 8,634,940 times
Reputation: 13006
Quote:
Originally Posted by dcfas View Post
[url=http://www.coffeehouseinvestor.com]The Coffeehouse Investor[/url]

When I began I was referenced this book. There is so much on line these days it's hard to understand what is legitimate and what is not. The book above is a good start.
Good luck!
That was my first book.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Economics > Personal Finance

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top