What are good stock investments?

no no no. over 80% of mutual funds underperform the market each year. THE BEST mutual funds provide SMALL, long-term gains. Your money should be in a diverse group of stocks right now. At this point in time, you want to look at emerging market stocks, chinese stocks, energy and agriculture. Tech is also a huge play. look into Altria (MO), Proctor and gamble, Intel, Cisco, sun cor(SU), coca cola, mcdonalds, mastercard. do your research

Investing in any single stock is a bad idea. How would anyone know what it will do? How can you diversify and insulate yourself from risk?

Instead, invest in quality mutual funds with long-term proven track record. To get the best results, invest a set amount regularly and take advantage of dollar-cost-averaging.

Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.
-- Will Rogers

Agree that for small amounts and over periods of time, at least a core of mutual funds.

Ones that go up. Ones that go down are not so good. Mad Money said tonight that GS is a good investment. I tend to agree on that point.

After investing in a "core holding" well diversified mutual fund(s), for individual stocks, I like companies that make products almost everyone in the world uses, uses every day, and uses up quickly so they have to buy more. Things like oil (ExxonMobil, ConocoPhilips, Total, etc) and toothpaste/soap (Proctor & Gamble, Clorox, Colgate-Palmolive etc). Notice during the down market of the past few months stocks like the ones mentioned have traded near their 52-week highs or even past their highs and made new ones. Even though China is very much in the news, there is still a lot of manufacturing going on in the rest of the world, including the USA. What products do companies need that are like the oil & soaps for people? Gas and chemicals come to mind for me. Who makes them? Praxair, Air Products and Chemicals, Dow, DuPont, Bayer, etc. They have also done very well over the past few months. Will they do well in the future? No one really knows, you must do your own research, evaluate the odds and make your own choice.

Good stocks;
Meet your risk tolerance
Fit nicely into your "Asset Allocation"
Are appropriate for you.
Are sized proportionately to your portfolio
Have a decent possibility of meeting your "time horizon".

Standard investment advice is that you should invest in a diversified mix of stocks, bonds, and money market funds. You want to buy a diversified portfolio of stocks as individual stocks are too risky. Most folks have a dificult time buying a properly balanced portfolio of stocks on their own. They will misbalance their portfolio by buying all small stocks or all growth stocks, or some other misbalanced assortment of stocks. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best to buy mutual funds. I like Vanguard.com, other people like Fidelity, TIAA-CREF, and DFA. Buy no-load, low -expense funds. If you are like most people you will invest part of your money aggressively in stock funds, and part conservatively in money market funds and bond funds. Vanguard has an on-line questionnaire which will give you an idea of how to do "Asset Allocation," determining how much to put in each type of fund.

If your company offers a 401K plan at work, try to invest the most you can. The money grows tax free, and some companies will match your contribution. Investing in a mutual fund IRA is also a good idea. If you have children, you may want to consider a 529 plan or other college savings plan that grows tax free.

I like index funds. Because of their broad diversification, you are less likely to have a dramatic drop in value. They also have the lowest expenses. For stock funds, I would suggest putting ~70-80% of your money in the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund. and ~20-30% in a foreign stock index fund. However, there are many different opinions out there on what the best mutual funds are. Read the links below and form your own opinion.

If you have high-interest debt, like credit cards, it is best to pay this off first before trying most of the investment ideas above. You should also have 3-6 months of salary saved up as an emergency fund in a bank or money market fund before trying more risky investments.

Believing advice you get on Yahoo answers can be risky, so read these websites for further information. If you find it too confusing, contact a professional financial advisor. They will charge you significant commissions, however.
Sources:
http://www.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/planni...
http://www.fool.com/school.htm
http://sec.gov/investor/pubs/assetalloca...
http://www.diehards.org/readsites.htm
http://finance.yahoo.com/education/begin...
http://finance.yahoo.com/funds/basics

Asset Allocation Calculators
(Determining how much to put in stocks and how much into bonds and money markets is a personal decision depending on your financial status. These Asset Allocation questionaires give you a rough idea how to do this. I like Vanguard best, but try some of the other sites as well.)
https://personal.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/...
https://ais2.tiaa-cref.org/cgi-bin/WebOb...
http://www.ifa.com/SurveyNET/index.aspx

Web forum: http://www.diehards.org/
(Many investment web forums are overrun by scam artists. This one seems the most legitimate site.)

529 plans: http://www.savingforcollege.com