Good investment advice?

Question

http://money-mentor.tripod.com/

The website stated above seemed to be quite useful. However,I am unsure how to begin my investment plan without consulting a IFA??

Answer 1

Good investment advice? Yep, you came to the right place.

First off, tripod.com is a free site. If your "money-mentor" was giving you advice, he is (as am I) doing it on the cheap. (I would normally say "you get what you pay for" but after paying a premium price and getting inferior service on my siding replacement recently, I discovered that saying is certainly not always true).

You mentioned the term "investment" so I have an idea for you. Subscribe to businessweek (http://www.businessweek.com/ -- or forbes or wall street journal, etc.)

These publications will give feature stories and general business environment descriptions. Then just read the stories for a few months. After a while you will 'get the lay of the land' so to speak and some day you will read about some company doing this or that and say to yourself, "I want to be a part of this". That is when you open an account (These guys are convenient and good: http://www.scottrade.com/) and buy some.

Investing is like planting a tree. You have to want a tree, you have to be patient to let it grow. If the company makes profits and expands then your stock will likely do so too. Don't worry if the price falls, even dramatically like right now. The market is only for the moment, they aren't out there servicing customers day after day like your business is. Again, give it time, because that is what investing is, letting the value of the business you own a part of grow to be worth more.

Answer 2

I prefer closed end funds over mutual funds.  Closed end funds don't have the problem of too much money flowing in(or out for that matter) that mutual funds have.  A large sell out of mutual funds can cause the whole stock market to decline.  Another thing to consider is REIT's, they're very cheap, and by law they have to pay out at least 90% of profits to shareholders.  Do your research first, you definitely don't want to buy into a bad mortgage REIT right now.

Answer 3

Do research where you live and find yourself a licensed financial adviser. You can use the Internet for information gathering and learning about investment types and strategies but there is nothing like a face to face meeting with a professional.

Answer 4

Be diversified (don't put all your eggs in one basket). Don't put all your money in one stock or even one category (like 5 oil stocks). Mutual funds are good. Just get started and put as much away as you can. It's also good to have some money in areas that typically don't fluctuate so much (like home equity). But if you are young, take some riskier investments (stocks and mutual funds).

Answer 5

Firstly that site is not authorised by anyone to give investment advice (FSA).

So I cannot see what help they would be.