I just received $80,000 in a settlement and wonder what is the best investment for this money.?

48 years old-have a home (paid off) that was inherited so no mortgage payment-no retirement plan- I have very little bills to pay.

Depends on your goals and reason to invest....

Can place your money into online banks like HSCB Direct or Emigrant Direct...both .com. Currently quoting 5% per year. Insured for $100,000.

Go to your local bank and get CD's paying 3-4% average or more depending on time. Very safe.

Open online account with someone like Schwab, Scottrade or TDAmeritrade. Establish IRA or online trading account for stocks or mutual funds. Stocks a crap shoot.

In mutual fund arena, suggest following stellar funds for long term growth and fund managers who are all stars and diversify your $'s.

Marsico 21st Century Fund...symbol MXXIX...a large cap fund
Cambiar Opportunity Fund...symbol CAMOX...a large cap fund
Excelsior Value&Opportunity...symbol UMBIX....a large cap fund
FBR Small Cap....symbol FBRVX...a small cap fund
SSGA International Stock Selection...symbol SSAIX..international
Westore Plus Bond Fund...symbol WTIBX....bond fund

Without knowing your age, tolerance for risk and investment goals, suggest you diversify.your $80K accordingly. Examples:

High risk....
50% Large Cap
25% Small Cap
15% International
10% Bonds

Low Risk
30% Large Cap
15% Small Cap
5% International
50% Bond

Determine your tolerance for risk. Establish your goals. Go for it.

Suggest morningstar.com for tons of free info for investors of all kinds and do your homework.

put it in fidelity investments until you decide what to do with it, it is protected and you get daily interest

house
stocks
business

Invest in that newfangled thing called computers??
Gateway?? IBM??

tee hee

It all depends on what kind of risk exposure you want.

One thing to look at is Trust Deed investing. It pays about 12% and is backed by real estate. This company is based in Henderson, NV and I've done business with them for over a decade without any problem:
http://www.consolidatedmortgage.com/

Stocks are good too, but you'll have to do some research and figure out what you're comfortable with. Start with BRK.B: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=t&s=BRKB

Not all the eggs in one basket is probably the best advice. I believe any responsible financial advisor would suggest you diversify and put some into fixed rate holdings (long term CD's for example) some into stock mutual funds, some into bond funds, some into treasury funds, etc. Having a balance between high risk & low risk investments helps protect against the ups & downs of the financial markets and offers the best chances for long term investment income.

If that doesn't sound good, I have a chinchilla ranch in Arizona looking for "investors" !!

if i had that money i would definetely rock my world

My would be to open an account with one of the makor brokerages. From there I would look to invest in some type of index fund that has takes a very small managing fee. By buying into an index fund you get the results of what the market does. I would suggest buying into the fund over time and not all at once in order to scale into it. Historically investing in the indexs would have outperformed 30 year treasurary bonds over the same periods. I would suggest buying in 5,000 or 10,000 blocks spread out over the next few months while keeping the money not invested in CDs in order to still be getting interest on your money. With the way the yield curve is right now keeping the money in short term cds while you scale into the market will be fine. I think this is your best way to eliminate risk.

Any recommendation would have to fit with your averall circumstance and your risk tolerance.$80,000 is a reasonable sum of money and I would start by going to an investment adviser to get an evaluation of your financial situation and an investment policy statement. The advisor should be independent and should charge a nominal fee for the evaluation. Here are some other thoughts
Do you own your own home? if yes, then what is your mortgage balance and your interest rate? if you don't own a home, then that should be high up on your list of choices.
If you own a home and you do have a mortgage, the question then is whether to pay down the debt or to find an investment that will return a rate that is higher than the rate that you're paying on your mortgage balance.
Stock in general have returned about 9.5-11% annually over a long period of time.( this is a mathematical average which means that stocks have lost money for some years and made more money in others). If you're mortgage rate is 6.5% then the return on investing in stocks is 11.5%-6.5%=5%. Therefore it might make some sense to pay down a mortgage even partially.
Hope this helps
boudames

Open a subway franchise and make real money on your investment,not some pidally as- return like ten percent.You can make over 30 percent running your own business. If you already have a job you can hire teenagers and a manager to run your business until you are ready to quit your other job.

I suggest you invest in real estate.

I suggest you to buy a house (If you don't have one already) or open a brokerage account at TD Ameritrade and invest with the help of a Portfolio Manager.