Is 500 dollars enough to start a mutual fund?

All I need to do is give the money to my dad and he will start it for me, but I don't know if that enough. 500 dollars is not all the money I have, I have about 1250$, but I don't want to put all of that money in....any suggestions?

Five hundred will probably not be enough, most require a minimum of $2000 but you may be able to find one for $1000. A mutual fund is a diversified investment portfolio. It is more important that you make a good selection of fund than anything else. Also, you can look at alternative investment vehicles such as savings bonds, certificates of deposit and money market accounts.

Also look at www.bankrate.com for the best savings, cd and money market rates.

Look at www.morningstar.com for mutual funds.

American Capital $250 in invest intially $50 after that but beware of sales loads on a LOT of them. For $500 I would recommend looking them up on http://morningstar.com they have great tools fo rjust this question.

Until the market settles a little bit more, I would just put it into a money market fund or into a 30-day cd. I think we've probably still got a few more weeks of instability in the market. In the meantime, you can save up a little bit more. I know when I opened mine, I had to start with $2000.

American funds will allow you to begin investing with $250 and subsequent investments of $25. They do have a load of 5.75% but very low expense ratios and an outstanding long term record. Here is the link

http://www.americanfunds.com/default-hom...

Famfunds you can start with as little as $500

You may also want to look into a Sharebuilder account

Yes.

You can open a brokerage account at TradeKing with just $500.00