Best investment...need advice?

Hi,

I have $20,000 in my bank account. I'm looking for the best way to keep the money I already have, and also make some money off of it. I was hoping to be able to make at least something like $400 a month off of that 20k. Any ideas?

You can put it in a real estate fund at Scottrade such as UMREX, and it is going up about 20% per year if you count the quarterly dividends. That is $333.33 per month, but not guaranteed, mutual funds can lose money also. And the dividends are only paid quarterly. It has made as little as 4.x% per year and as much as 28% per year. No loads, and no transaction fees from this fund at scottrade. TAREX is good also, but has a transaction fee.

Yeah, loan sharking on a small scale...

Good luck.

Read some investing tips and more on this site to help you with it

2% return a month at least the first month anyway thats fairly realistic, I would put it away in an EFT, oyu could easily get 10-15 % a year

Your asking for over a 20% rate of return.
You are not going to find that without significant risk to your capital.

Be very skeptical of anyone who says you can.

never invest more than you afford to lose

You cannot without taking extraordinary risks with your money. This is a low interest rate environment with very high asset prices, you might find purely speculative ways to make that return, but not if you want to not have a good chance of losing everything.

Let see a 2% gain per month? Not very ambitious are ya? Well how about this stock

Keep in mind, past performance does not guarantee future results.

CVP, it is currently paying .13 per share per month. If you can buy it at 16.00 per share or 1250 shares times .13 = 162.5 per month. Not quite 200 dollars but........eh.

$400 per month in income on $20k is about 24% per year. That is very rare in any market. You might be able to safely earn 8% - 12% per year (no guaranty) in a good mutual fund. But you could lose money too.

Depending on where you live, $20k might be enough for a downpayment on a rental property. In some markets you can get a good duplex or triplex for under 200k. (I bought a triplex in a small town for 120k) .

So if you can find a mortgage at 10% down, buy a triplex for, say, 150k by taking out a 125k mortgage, you might have a payment of $1400 - $1500 per month (depending on local taxes, insurance and utilities), and rent the place out for $600-$700 per month per apartment you could earn that much on your 20k. But that's a lot of work and not without risk.

Make at least $400 a month on $20k - 2% per month - 24% per year? Here is what I suggest before you do anything - go to yahoo finance or morningstar AND see how many mutual funds have made 24% per year for the last 5 years - my guess is that you won't find many that have made 15% AND keep in mind that these are professional money managers.

I don't think that you are going into this with realistic expecations. Buying a single stock OR a single anything for that matter is a complete crapshoot. I don't know when you will possibly need this money BUT if I had this as excess money to invest I would want to buy 4-5 unrelated investments AND I wouldn't want to buy it all at the same time. For instance maybe I was going to buy mutual funds and would split the money between a dividend fund - bond fund - growth fund - midcap fund - international fund AND buy half now and half in 2 months, or whatever, just would want to be able to make an additional purchase if it went down right after I bought it, which is a very realistic possibility unfortunately.

What funds should you buy? Remember that study you did looking for fund returns as high as what you are looking for. Chose from those that are morningstar 4-5 star funds AND look for the funds that had a smooth return of about the same thing each year -vs- erractic returns.

Good luck to you.

Reward is directly related to risk. The only way to make 2% per month (that is almost 27% per year with monthly compounding) is to put your money into risky assets.

I wouldn't advise it.

Since you are obviously a naive investor, I'd suggest no-load mutual funds that mimic the broad market. On average, that should give you about 150-200 increase per month.

Expect a lot of variance. Remember that you are in it for the long run.

Buy a stock with a fairly flat price, One that offers regular devidend payments. Then write options (covered calls) against your stock. Always go one month out and no more and always just out of the money. That will get you about what your looking for. Maybe not quit or all the time but close. You also get the dividend payment as gravy as long as you don't get exercised. If you get exercised you still win cause you were selling just out of the money so you are in the green on the sale. Watch and when the price slips back, buy back in and do it all over again. and again, and again, and again....etc.

To make $400 a month from $20,000 is not realistic for most of us. I would be thrilled to get a 10% return today which would average about $167 a month on that sum. If you want a return greater than a money-market fund or a bank CD, you will have to take considerable risk to acheive it.

get a scottsman guide and find a hard money lender - make sure u look over investments wisely - u can earn up to 14% interest on most loans - Call Hoss Mortgage Investment 1-866-486-4677 they are a new start up company - great people!!!!

Are you willing to risk $400.00 a month too?