Looking to get into investing, need help?

[hhsfootball]

I have about $10,000 saved up and I was thinking about investing but I don't really know anything about it. If you can give me any idea what the process is and some tips I would appreciate it! Thanks!

[raysor]

The first process is to figure out what you want to achieve. Do you want a risk free steady income? Or a speculative high reward strategy?
If you don't know anything about it you have two choices: Learn all about it or employ a qualified stockbroker to invest it for you.

[Georgina]

Hi,

Some ideas:

a. Fixed Deposit account at a bank - These are high interest savings accounts which have some restrictions on them (e.g. when you can take out money). This is a safe and consistent option but will have a lower return than some other methods.

b. Stock trading - you can make money by buying a piece of a company (a share) at a low price and selling for more.
If you are going to trade individual stocks you need to really understand the company you are going to buy to predict whether their stock will increase or decrease in value. If you do not have the time or knowledge to do this it is better to buy a fund or index.

For example you could buy the FTSE 100 Index, this follows the movement in all stocks in the FTSE 100 so you are not as exposed to one companies fluctuations. Indexes generally have more consistent profits, but individual stocks have more chance for big, quick profits. One of the most constantly successful indexes is the S&P 500.

If you can, invest a set amount a month using Dollar Cost Averaging. This is where you always invest say $100, when the market is low and shares cost less you will buy more shares, and when the market is high you will buy less but higher value shares.

You can invest online such as optionsxpress.com or your bank may have the facility online.

c. Forex Trading. You could trade currencies futures. This is where you predict whether currencies are going to increase or decrease, and buy or sell based on this. To understand more see extra.agea.com . Again, this trading needs a good understanding but has low transaction costs as brokers, such as AGEA, do not charge commissions. They make their money on the spreads between the bid and ask price.

For this you should do some learning (try extra.agea.com) and practice on a demo account (trading using virtual money). Then you can open a live account (AGEA gets $5 free money as well).

To open an account go to https://www.agea.com/index.ncre?page=ope...&gid=48837
Then to download the demo go to http://www.agea.com/index.ncre?page=downloads&g…

I hope that helps.

Georgina
http://www.facebook.com/ageajinrongdoo

[Attila]

Just a tip for a medium-term investment, as you requested, below.