First time investment advice needed.?

I have about $2000 that I want to start investing with. Any recommendations; sites, investments, etc would be greatly appreciated! I'm looking at schwab and stocktrader currently.

Charles Schwab is an excellent discount broker.

Do it now! before you spend the money. They have tons of no-load mutual funds you can get into for 2k. Be sure and reinvest your dividends.

You could also start automatic draft to the account (from your checking) to squirrel away money painlessly.

Do you have an IRA? This might be the time for you to open one, You have until April 17th.

leggmason

I totally recommend investing in real estate first and then maybe a few thousand in a money market account. You should consult with a tax expert to confirm what I told you.

The first thing is first, you need to figure out what your Risk Tolerance is. Sure, you can definetely look at all the sources on the Internet, but it doesn't hurt to schedule a No-Cost Meeting with Financial Advisor. They are always willing to help, as they earn income based on what you bring in, so doesn't hurt to sit down with them. If you find that you like the person you are dealing with, stick with their ideas or do additional research to see what suits you. Generally with that kind of Initial Investment, I would say stick to Mutual Funds.

I would suggest reading the book the The Motley Fool You Have More Than You Think : The Foolish Guide To Personal Finance (Paperback) it helped me.

It's great that you have some money to invest!

But you don't say what your goal is for the money? The options vary widely depending on your goals, after all.

I'd go conservative (money market account, or online savings account) if it's for an emergency fund, whereas I'd say an IRA or Roth IRA is probably the way to go if you're trying to save for retirement (and you also have the added bonus of being able to take it out, without penalty, for a first-time home purchase, to cover health care expenses if you're unemployed, or if you become disabled.)

If you're looking for an online savings account (though I don't get the impression you are), I recommend ING Direct. They don't have the higest yield right now, but they're consistant among the highest and I've been very happy with my entire experience with them (since 2003.)

If you're looking for an IRA, I also recommend ING.

If you're looking for a non-retirement investment account, I also have had good luck with sharebuilder, though you'll want to read the fine print carefully about fees for the different account types.

To be honest $2000.00 dollars is a small amout of money to try to start investing in the stock market with, and also you may lose that very quickly if you have never invested in stocks.

I would start out with a high-yield online savings account that pays anywhere from 4.5%- 5.5% percent interest.

ING Direct and Emigrant Direct are two popular sites to check out.

Just my opinion, but I feel you need at least $5,000.00 to have a real shot at successful stock market investing.

I would also start out with an index fund from a company such as Vanguard. They have the oldest index fund around that basically mirrors whatever the S&P 500 does that way you can easily track how well your investment is doing everyday.

Best of Luck

don't tell me u want to go to a website and study the stock yourself.. why not start by taking some investment lessons...or check out 'mad money'.

Pick among the 10 top traded stock on the Dow by volumes, check their financials and shortlist the top two to four scrips for quarter on quarter growth in business and profits and invest in these.
Alternatively invest in Templeton equity mutual funds

How much time are you willing to invest in this? $2000 is not a lot to start with, but with a few well-educated well-chosen stock picks, you can do very well. You do have less room for error in the process, though. Probably, your best bets are with either a mutual fund or with a single stock. As a beginning investor, I'd recommend to you sticking with stocks that are priced above $5.00 a share. The risks of stocks priced lower than that may be more than you are willing to live with. The best approach, by far, is to buy a stock, and hold it. Too much buying and selling will have the commissions and taxes eating away at your profits before you'll even be able to say "profits?" and that would be bad. Also, if your buying and selling stocks in a brokerage account that is not an IRA account, you'll get significant tax advantages if you hold your stock picks for more than one year when you go to sell them.

Spend some time looking over the companies financials and other SEC filings at the SEC website http://www.sec.gov and familiarize yourself with the kinds of information you can find in such reports. They can be very enlightening to look at the big picture that way.

Also, don't invest in any stock which you receive an e-mail advertisement for. Most of these are truly excellent ways to flush your money down the toilet.

Buy a bank CD until you save more money