What Stocks Should I Invest my Money in???

I am 20 years old, I work for Verizon Wireless. I do have a 401k started. Basically I just wanted to invest my money in a very safe way that would yield good returns over a long length of time because right now my money is just sitting in my bank account doing nothing. In other words I'm not looking for the get rich quick stocks. Also how much of my paycheck should I devote to investing as opposed to just saving because you never know when the stock market could crash etc. My grandparents have a crap load of GE stock which seems to be a reliable one...just throwin it out there. I'd really appreciate any responses and please break it down to me because obviously I am not savvy with market terms etc...im green...a newbie. THANKYOU!

Instead of individual stocks, look for a well diversified mutual fund with no load and a low expense ratio. Check Vanguard funds (I personally like the Total Market Index for a core holding, but there are plenty of others), T. Rowe Price also has a good fund family. You also might want to look at asset allocation funds that split the investment between stocks and bonds. My favorite one of those has closed to new investors, but there are lots of them out there.

A mutual fund will help you avoid some of the risks inherent in an individual stock. Once you have built a sizeable investment in this core holding, you may want to buy individual stocks, but I would definitely get my feet wet with mutual funds first.

look into TTGL.ob

Ditto the Vanguard total market index. Most people make investing more complicated than it needs to be.

I completely (well, more like) 99% agree with BosCFA. Vanguard Total Stock Market fund is just US stocks. I prefer the newer Target Retirement Funds from Vanguard or T. Rowe Price instead. They include international stocks and bonds.
In your 401k, there should also be Target Retirement funds aka Verizon 2010 Fund, Verizon 2015 Fund, etc up to Verizon 2050 Fund.

I agree with BosCFA instead of investing in stocks you should invest in mutual funds or ETF. But instead of looking for a no-load fund I'll look on the performance. For me I don't care if the funds has a highest load or fee as long as the performance is best. You can start on the Yahoo -> Finance -> Mutual fund... and check the growth or value whether you like small cap, mid cap or large cap as long as you look on the performance for the past 3 years this will be a good bet. This fund most of the time outperform the SP500. The reason why I told you not to look on the fee or load because I'll like to bet to the best player like in golf I bet my money on Tiger Woods not to the bottom player which is cheap. And Tiger Woods is not cheap he is one of the most high paid player but he is worth it.

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Good luck.