I've never before invested in the stock market, but do want to invest some money in the S&P 500. How?

A good site to this type of research for free is Morningstar. Although it has a premium subscription for some of its research, it also provides good, basic mutual fund information for free. You can also check the quarterly mutual fund roundups in Business Week, Forbes, and Fortune, as well as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

Do research on S&P 500 Index funds. Discuss with an accountant or a stock broker. Visit local investment companies. I cannot give out names, but you should understand the risks and your risk tolerance in the context of your investment goals. Don't take any suggestions in this venue literally and seriously. Do your homework. It's your money.

I used to sign up for internet trading websites (which probably don't exist anymore) like Datek and Ameritrade. Before you do any actual investing, you can try out www.virtualstockexchange.com to get a feel for what it's like. This is a free website that lets you practice investing in the stock market and they let you start off with some "money" to invest. There, you can practice investing on actual stocks without losing any real money.

If your looking to buy the entire S&P 500 index, then the cheapest way to do so would be to own the SPDRS (ticker symbol "SPY"), which has an expense ratio of just 0.11%.

Good luck :)

Go with an index fund. I recommend the E-Trade fund - ETSPX. It tracks the S&P 500 and has .19% expense ratio.

spy for quick in and out trading or large dollar amounts would work well. you can also get out instantly unlike mutual funds. spy has the best liquidity since it trades multi millions of shares daily.

if you are looking to invest small amounts of money over time then transaction costs would hurt you in spy, so look to Vanguard or Fidelity S&P funds. They are the low cost leaders in the industry.