I have $5,000 dollars that I would like to invest in a long-term venture.?

I am looking for a good return with little to no risk.
Please offer personal examples of investment ventures that have proven successful.

buy BAC undervalued, high dividend yield

http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/05/magazine...

universal life insurance- guaranteed returns, cheap money on the dollar, tax free capabilities. read the book "Missed Fortune 101"

Your best bet is to open an IRA. Low risk=Low Return

Think carefully about what you know. Are you a sports fan? Invest in a team, or company that makes sports gear. Make sure you study the market, and the fluctuations in the stock you want to buy. If you know about horses, invest in a race or competition horse. this may sound surprising, but you can actually make alot of profit off of that. If you do invest in a horse, make sure you invest in a stallion (you can make money off of his breedings even after you retire). You could invest in a General Stock (I think that's what it is called.) With that you basically have invested in a bunch of different things in the stock market, so that even if one thing goes down, the other will go up. I have stock in that, and have made money off of it. Just be wise in your investment, and don't invest in something you don't know about. Good Luck!

Invest in a mutual fund for blue chip stocks, they have very little fees and since it's a long term investment growth will be slow but steady. Try Vanguard Mutual funds or T. Rowe Price Funds. Good luck.

I would put it into an IRA. For a conventional IRA you get to deduct the maximum amount (I think it's still $4K) from your income for tax purposes (If you haven't done your taxes yet, you can still put it into the IRA and qualify for the deduction) but you'll have to pay taxes on the accrued capital gains. This is a very low risk investment but will accrue more $ over time.

An alternative is a Roth IRA which you don't deduct from your taxes but when you cash it out the capital gains are tax-free. Also you can pull the money out without penalty for education (yours or your childs) or home purchase (wording of the tax code currently will allow homes purchased 3 years apart but its intent is for 1st home).

Additionally, I would recommend opening an Ameritrade account and buying through them so if you choose to diversify your IRA holdings you can view their performances from 1 site. You can also set up a separate account for the remaining $1k for which I recommend considering a mutual fund. I recommend a fund with a large holding in housing/home building stocks.

Invest in ebay, yahoo, or google you cant go wrong!

I suggest you invest in blue chip stocks.As they give you good returns on your investment in long run .

Try Prosper.com. You choose the level of risk you want to take and if you don't get the return you want you don't have to invest. I'm currently earning over 20% with a medium to high risk protfolio.