How do I invest in Mutual Funds?

Where do I go to get started?
What is the starting dollar amount I need?

There are two types of mutual funds--open end and closed end. Open end funds are purchased directly from the mutual fund company. Some of these funds can be purchase from stock brokers who act as intermediaries with the mutual fund company. Open end fund in tern are divided into two groups--load funds and no load funds. With a load fund, one pays a sales charge to buy the fund, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2%. There are different classes of load funds. With some classes the fee is paid at the time that the fund is purchased, with others it is paid when the fund is sold. Load funds for the most part are sold by stock brokers and their commission comes out of the load but I believe you can also buy them directly from the mutual fund company. Different funds have different minimum investments to begin. Starting with about $500 on up to $1,000,000. After making an initial investment you can then add periodically to the fund with a more modest investment perhapst in the neighborhood of $50 to $100.

Yahoo has a good site for researching mutual funds, but the data is not always completely accurate. It is however a good place to start. I will provide you with a link to get you started.

Closed end funds

These funds are traded like stocks. You buy them through a stock broker like you would buy a stock. You can buy as little as one share. Many index funds fall into this category. Index funds are funds that track a stock market index and normally have lower expense ratios than managed funds.

There are a couple of big advantages to closed end funds that open end funds lack. One is that many closed end funds trade at a big discount to the net asset value of the fund, as much as 10-15%. Another is that you can sell them at any time as you would sell a stock. With an open end fund, you can sell it only at the closing value of the net assets at the end of the day. If the stock market should go into a free fall, that is not a good position to be in.

I am also providing a link to a site that lists all available closed end funds and shows you performance data on those funds.

Now there is one thing you need to be aware of. 70%--some people will argue and even greater percentage--of mutual funds underperform the general market. That is why index funds have become so popular. Keep that in mind.

depends on the fund. do your research into which funds you would like to invest in. Get the prospectus and in there it will tell you how to invest.

Try vanguard.com. They have a lot of different funds for most any investor. The best part is that there is no sales charge so all of your money will be invested.

Try going directly to a mutual fund company. Some of them offer low initial investment amounts. You can go to their websites and find out more information. you can open up a ROTH IRA for your retirement and save up to 4,000 a year. Check out T. Rowe Price, Oppenheimer, or Royce and research a really good fund through Yahoo Finance. Best of Luck.