I would like to invest some money in a bank, what is the best way to do so.?

Wondering what options there are for investing money in 'something' in a bank. I am a student and I am looking for short term options 3-4 years.

I like Fidelity.com. You can buy CDs on line and don't have to mess with filling out all the forms with a brick and mortar bank.
///

THere are always short term options like Money markets and short term CD's. However what you invest in is going to depend on money that you have to invest and your general risk tolerance.

Everyone wants a 100% liquid, no risk, short term, high yield investment. Problem is that this does not exist.

Investing is a tradeoff. Yu trade liquidity for increased return on bank products and you trade risk for reward on non bank investments.

Investing in CD's and other bank investments is guaranteeing a rate that should keep up with or marginally out pace inflation. factor in taxes and you are most always losing. That is how banks make money, they borrow your money at low rates to lend to risk takers at good rates.

Here are a few better options.

Invest IN the bank itself. Find a good bank stock that will pay you a dividend. The dividend is more tax friendly than an interest payment and you have the underlying stock as well.

Become the bank. You can start an account on prosper.com. there you can lend money into your own portfolio of unsecured loans. Sure it is not as safe as lending to a bank, but with the risk you are taking you now get the reward.

Hope this helps

CD's are a great way.

1. If you need access to the money anytime, I would use online savings account like emigrantdirect.com or hsbcdirect.com. They pay 5% apr.

2. If you don't need access to the money for 3 years, you might be able to make more in CD. Check bankrate.com for the best CD yields. Check the local bank for CD specials. You should be able to get a higher rate.

3. If you can tolerate risk of losing money, you might invest in an low expense-ratio and no-load s&p index fund. However, you might be able to find a better low-risk fund, but you need knowledge about mutual funds. (With mutual funds, you could end up with less money than you started with, but you could make considerable more) (I would recommend mutual funds if you had a ten year time horizon)

4. Individual stocks. Unless you're willing to risk all of your money, individual stocks are too risky. (Making money in stocks requires following the company and knowing some about accounting, psycology, economics and still you can lose money).

Option 1. and 2. are insured by our goverment, so they are safer and more dependable. If you recieve an annual percentage rate of 5% on $5,000.00. In 4 years, if it would be worth $6,077.00. Where option 3 and 4, you don't know what your $5000.00 would be worth in four years.

God Bless

I suggest you to open a brokerage account at Zecco and invest in Apple.

Here is a portfolio of some great bank stocks:

http://www.top10traders.com/ViewPortfoli...

This is from http://www.top10traders.com - a free site that lets you create a portfolio of stocks, and then see how your picks perform compared to other investors.

Good luck!