If I have only a few hundred dollars to invest, how do I ...?

If I have only a few hundred dollars to invest, how do I make fast and low risk investments?

well, most of this will sound like clich茅s, but here it goes anyway...

you have to start somewhere, and if you have only a few hundred dollars, then i would think that even the remote possibility of losing it should be out of the question, so my only recommendation would be to put that in any bank account you can find paying at least 5%, and try to save as much as you can if you are working, and don't spend money on things you don't really need.

in the meantime, as your account builds, learn what you can about all kinds of investments, and if you find anything promising, try it.

otherwise, you can go broke pretty fast.

good luck!

start small and invest in the stock market with companies that sell shares at $20 or more. WARNING: do not spend it all on one company and remember to buy low and sell high.

What do you mean by "fast and low risk"?

Low risk equals low rate of return. If you want it fast (meaning you want to invest quickly and get out quickly) then you are talking a passbook savings account. Not very exciting and probably paying lower than the rate of inflation (in other words, you are losing money letting it sit there).

Otherwise check out mutual funds (see below).

Oh yeah there's lot's of places that you can make big bucks easily with no risk with a low starting sum.

Get real and realise that you need to get the balance between High starting investment (which you don't have), risk (which is up to you to decide (if you can lose it and not cry too much then you can accept a riskier investment)), likely returns (which you can only predict with limited certainty).

If you want big bucks then you have to accept high risk of losing it all. If you can risk losing it all you will have to accept lower returns.

It's called a fact of life I'm afraid. The good news is that when you have well over $1Million to invest then people come out of nowhere to offer you genuine high return low risk investments but not to guys with a few hundred to put away.

Go to Sharebuilder.com. They offer trades as low as $4.00 in over 6000 companies. Additionally, you can fund your investment account in any amount on a weekly basis and grow your portfolio.

It's a great place to learn. They offer tools that compare to the high priced brokerages.

Good Luck