Hey guys I have been researching of what I want to invest some money in for a long time. I know what shares I want to buy and diversified as much as I could. Anyway, what is a good online brokerage firm I can use. Some said Scottrade, but what do you guys recommend? Mind you I don't have too much money (only about 1G-2G)

 

etrade ftw, has a lot of tools u can use to trade and if ur an active trader, you get a live tradin desk too. i love it... i think i saw 100 commission free trades for new customers as well

 

scottrade set up a ROTH ira(search this forum for exactly what a ROTH is, it sounds like what your looking to do). When you set up the account the office closest to you will make sure you get it set up the right way, after the acount is set up you can contribute to it and make purchase to what ever you feel like when ever you want to - it offers you a lot of flexibility.

I started investing heavily when I was your age and it was with out a doubt one of the best decision I ever made.

$1000 invested at your age is worth a touch over $200,000 at age 65, making 12% a year which should not be a problem over that time period - so $2k would be a bit over $410,000 roughly and so on....

 

Yea I read up on a ROTH IRA Account, but just to clear this up I can use that money for the public stock market?

 

In fact with scottrade its cheaper to purchase stocks on the NYSE and NASDAQ then it is to purchase mutual funds, in addition at the end of the year any annual divident issued from a mutual fund is rolled into your scottrade account, not rolled over into automatically using it to purchase more shares - the downfall of this is you are charged to purchase again. With Scottrade its more then $7 to purchase mutual funds, and for some reason they wait to the end of the day that the order is made to place your order, so it may be +/- what you initially thought it was going to be, but with limit buying its hardly a problem.

I suppose you could day trade inside your ROTH, but its not a terribly smart idea for long term growth unless your last name happens to be Buffet With retirement planning the tortois always wins and the hare is left in the dust, my

 

Thanks for the input guys! With regards to interest rates on a ROTH, don't they always change in relation to the Federal Funds rate and stuff or is it a gauranteed rate?