The trick with Index Funds is that they aren't "managed" - they just buy a whole segment of the stock market (so they say they "index" the stock market) - and your fortunes rise and fall with the economy at large.
Since they're not "managed", you aren't paying some worthless manager to take vacations and get health care for his kids. The fees on mutual funds might look low at 1 or 2 percent - but that adds up to some real MONEY in a few years. The fees in Index Funds might be .05% or 20 to 40 times lower. So you get to keep your money.
You can go on the Vanguard site and start a little account and read their stuff. Or you can get a used copy of "Index Funds for Dummies" and read that.
People have been talked into "Mutual Funds" over the years - many people have their entire retirement involved in these things. But the sleazy, rich leaches that live off of other people blood have figured out a way to attach themselves to these funds and suck out "fees". The sad part is - lots of people have no control over their retirement funds... their company does that for them. And often their company is in cahoots with the "managers".
So keep out of the hands of the "managers". Apparently overall "managed" funds don't even do as well as Index Funds.
The question is "when do you want to USE that money"?
In 3 months?
3 years?
3 decades?
It matters how you invest it.
Be more concerned with the return OF your principal, rather than the return ON your principal.
Go to Couch Potato Investing (assetbuilders.com), Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance, and Vanguard Investments.
Poke around a little. Do a little research. Do a little soul searching. And figure it out.
Remember, your early investing mistakes are the most expensive.
(45 years ago I had $3,000. I bought speculative stocks and the money was gone in 2 years. WHAT IF, I had bought Coca Cola (my favorite cola, at the time) (KO), reinvested the dividends and held on?)
There aren't enough personal financial facts.
Do you really want income?
You could find a high yielding equity or equity/bond fund (ETF)
Or invest in investment grade corporate bond or maybe a corporate bond on the ORB.
One way to do it is to ask yourself what you want/need. Let's say it is 6%. Ok how do you get 6%? A corporate bond? What is the risk of that bond? Are you prepared to accept that risk?
If you can find others with a similar amount - put it all together - go out and buy a house.
Wait 25 years all the time RENT out the house.
It should then be sold. You will get about 1300% RETURN.
1) Don't listen to Auroch
2) Get an advisor
I am 26. I have 10k I would like to invest that could yield me a decent amount ( not like what the banks are paying for interest). So, does anyone have any suggestion I could look into?
Gratefully, thank you
