There are no "safe" stocks - no matter what industry you invest in, there will be fluctuations, some days more than tech stocks, some days less. There are two ways to reduce these fluctuations - buy a stock with a beta less than 1 or buy an index fund with many stocks. A low beta stock will fluctuate less than the market as a whole but also return less than a market as a whole (beta is a comparison measure - a stock with a beta of .5 will go up or down only half as much on average as the index it is being measured against - less fluctuation but less overall return).

The easiest "hands-off" way to make a decent (& consistent) return in stocks is the "Dogs of the Dow" strategy, wherein you make equal-dollar-amount purchases of the ten lowest price/highest dividend-yielding out of the 30 Dow Jones Industrial Index components, hold them for 13 months, then sell them (thus avoiding short-term capital gains taxes) and use the cash to buy whichever stocks are the "Dogs" at that point...over the years this strategy has yielded an average overall annual return of about 21% a year, though it has slowed in recent years....but that's still TWICE what most "active" funds will net you!

If you want something that you don't have to pay a lot of attention to then I would recommend purchasing no load mutual funds or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs.)

You can spread your risk out over several stocks with just one purchase.

Plan to rebalance your portfolio at least once a year.

You might also consider stocks that pay dividends. The compounding returns add up nicely over time.

Also consider consumer staples (toilet paper, shampoo, deodorant, detergents, soup, cereal, etc.) The types of things that people buy even during a recession. These types of stocks don't have as many big swings.

Put some into Inovio Pharmaceuticals (INO). This is a $3.50 stock that could be $30 in 3-4 years.

A great place to start to learn about investing or hone your skills is the blog InvestLikeMe.blogspot.com. The author provides market news and articles regarding the technicals of stocks. He also shows you his current active portfolio and updates his trade real time on twitter so you can make the same trades as him.

I recommend CVS CAREMARK CORPORATION.

NYSE symbol: CVS

It is presently fairly priced with a P/E of about 16. Earnings have grown very steadily every year for 10 years. It has quite low debt with a debt to equity of 0.26. This seems quite safe from any financial pitfalls.

This is a stock that you can buy and then forget about it for several years while it earns money for you and grows in value.

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I'd rather stay away from technology stocks since those can fluctuate from one day to the next. I'm looking for something that increases gradually and I don't have to keep up with the news as much as I would with a tech stock. Thanks for the recommendations. I shall lookinto them!