Where can I find --GOOD-- Investment advice?

I am in need of HELP as I cannot pick a stock to Save MY A--.

You can't.

As Jesse Livermore said, if there is any easy money lying around, nobody is going to stuff it into your pocket.

If you want to make serious money, you have to learn to do it yourself. Good books is a good start. You may also want to join our stock picking group: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Tr...
It's free and you learn from other traders in the trenches.

Personally, I joined the predecessor group back in 2003 and learned a lot.

Probably not on YA. Try a good broker in your area.

Don't buy individual stocks, buy good growth stock mutual funds. See www.daveramsey.com and click on "ELP" [endorsed local providers]

I was the same way a couple months ago. Do some research before you jump into anything. I will recommend a couple good books that have been really useful to me. "the wealthy Barber", Books by David Bach, (check the Library), personal investing for Dummies. I have read all these and more, they have been a great help in putting me on the right track.

You may find a lead here.

A simple question, but not a simple answer! If you want to educate yourself about investing, there are many excellent internet sites: investopedia.com; smartmoney.com; yahoo.finance.com; morningstar.com; sharebuilder.com, and a host of others will give you great background.

But "picking a stock" is never easy, and that's why you need to consult an investment professional. Because really, you don't just pick some stocks. You need to be diversified, so just picking a few stocks is extremely risky.

You have to develop a thoughtful investment plan based on your goals, your investable dollars, your risk tolerance, your investment time horizon and a host of other factors.

Once you have a plan, you need to evaluate how you are doing on a quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis. You need to decide ahead of time what benchmarks you will use to evaluate your investment success. You also need to decide ahead of time what to do with profits and losses-- how much are you willing to lose before "pulling the plug" on the investment? How much gain would you like before you sell to reap the gains or to further diversify?

As you can see, it's a process and if you can find a good professional who is on board with you, it really helps!

Peter Lynch was a great investor. Read his book 'One up on wall street'.

Peter investigated companies and bought on fundamentals. This produces a good long term strategy.

Many brokerages teach employees how to sell, how to diversify, but rarely do they teach how to pick stocks. Stock picking is an art form.

So now you are left with fund managers.

One alternative is to look at stock screening systems. System that have been tested and have proven results over different time frames, say 3, 5, 10 and 15 years.

A system which is simple to understand, easy to use, and still leaves you in complete control is ideal. The stocksmonthly system fits into this category.

Unfortunately, trustworthy Financial Advisors, Stock Brokers, Investment Consultants, or whatever you want to call them, are hard to find on your own. Bigger brokerage firm advisors will offer you an investment that suits their pocket more than yours. They all want to "annuitize" their business, where they receive a small percentage of what your account is worth. That takes the monitoring pressure off of themselves and leaves it to a portfolio manager. They also can offer you investments that have up-front charges, so once you buy, from then-on, you pay again at some point to buy something new. There are ways around that, but usually advisors won't tell you that. The bigger brokerage firms will also only give you an advisor if you have $50-100K for account size. Otherwise, it goes to a call center; they are all moving towards high(er) net worth clients. Stock brokers just want to make trades so they can make commission off of what you buy/sell, so they could care less what you do. Bank advisors mostly sell proprietary stuff, so it may not be the best for the client. Luckily with bank advisors, they have the most to lose, so they are usually the most honest ones. For example, if they make you angry/mad, not only will you move your investments, you'll probably move your banking relationship too. My advice is to find out who your family, friends, and/or co-workers use (if any) and then set an appointment with them. Consultations should be free, there should be no pressure, and most importantly, they should ask what your goals, risk tolerance, and time horizon is. Planning is paramount to giving GREAT advice and so is understanding. Unless you have plenty of free time, learning it yourself is a waste of time. There are 14,000+ mutual funds and more stocks, so if you like reading and have time to learn about each fund and study each holding or research the company stock, you should leave it up to the professionals. Work smart and not hard.

OK I too have been cruising around and these people seem fairly competent and know what they're talking about.