E-Trade, is this my best option?

I am considering opening an E-trade account. I am looking to start out with about $1,000. I have money market accounts, Bonds, etc; these accounts are good, however the return rate isn't but about 2% higher than the rate of inflation. I'm ready to do something a little different. I don't mind having to do a little bit of work (managing, monitoring...etc) however, the obvious wish is to minimize this. I have considered investing into a mutual fund, something through fidelity, vangaurd, ING ...etc. IPO's, things of this nature are obviously out of the question assuming im not a millionare (unless i have some great misconception of IPO's). I've read about good sectors to be in right now...etc i understand you get what you pay for, time is power and that risk is neccesary to gain anything. im looking something pretty agressive. Wouldn't we all love to be able to know when were 45 we can sail away on our yachts? (im 19, i just want make sure i'm well on my way) Please advise.

This is absolutely not your best option!!! TRUST ME, I KNOW!!! Mutual funds are always the way to go but if you are looking to make your money grow fast....invest in CHEESE. The 2nd richest man next to Bill Gates is a cheese man. last year their stocks split almost 2 a month. I did and by the end of last year I was very very wealthy!!!! I'm 26 and finacially have the resources to retire and live comfortably until I'm 85 and never work another day in my life. AINT LIFE GRAND!!!!!

I don't know that much about e-trades and I am no expert, but I think I would recommend a mutual fund of some kind, like you said, probably in one of the good sectors that are projected to do well. And I would probably go to an investment company for their advice..we use Edward Jones...but you want to go to someone who does not just sell their own products (there is too much of a conflict of interest). But I would say you were well on your way and I want to congratulate you on having such great financial goals at your age. Good luck.

Just in terms of administration, I've always found E*Trade to be a huge pain in the butt. I believe you'd find Schwab (for example) offers similar services, and were much more pleasant for me to work with. With E*Trade, it seemed like at the drop of a hat they'd create new accounts for me, change account numbers, and other strange things. And heaven help me when I tried to use their web site to find/use any of these accounts. Whereas Schwab always just kinda worked.

I'm not affiliated with Schwab. I have no reason to think they are particularly amazing. But they provided me the example to see how irritating E*Trade was.

E-Trade is a horrible, horrible company. Really incompetent and nasty. I switched to Ameritrade a couple of years back and never had any problems with them.