Investment plan?

Yes, make one and stick with it!

Go to Vangaurd and you can order several pamphlets, for free, to guide you. I think you can get 9 and they cover both general and specific.

Index funds, no management fees that will make institutional investors 40million a year and on average 70% of them beat managed funds. If you want to go with stocks alone make sure you have enough money to buy at least 10 different stocks, with the same number of shares per company. Also if you want to go with a technical analysis, you may go to yahoo finance, go to the technical analysis section and you can set up bollenger bands which will show the Standard Deviations of stocks, from that when the stock hits the band at the low you buy, at the high call a broker and short sell that particular stock. I could try to get into fundamental analysis but it is much too complicated. Basically if you want to be pretty safe you need a portfolio of at least 10 stocks to minimize your risk.

The right investment plan for you depends on a lot of factors and considerations you don't spell out in your question. For example, how old are you? Are you concerned with retirement only, or are you trying to save for a child's college expenses as well? When do you (realistically) hope to retire? What financial resources do you have (pension, access to a 401(k) plan, etc.)? For a general discussion of investment plans and some model investment plans, go to the first webpage listed below. The website listed below that discusses various aspects of saving and investment. There's no charge for this information.

You bet!