My roth ira investment isn't doing so well. What are the plusses and negatives of my next roth investment going to a different mutual fund or for that matter a different brokerage house? It doesn't make sense to put my next investment into the same lousy mutual fund. What are my alternatives?

You can invest your Roth IRA contributions among different mutual funds, brokerage houses, etc. However, you are still limited to the maximum contribution of $3,000 for 2002. That is a total amount which means you cannot add $3,000 per account.

also, if your financial advisor makes any stock recommendations, you may want to consider investing in those

Market conditions for the past two years have been very difficult. In the past 70 years or so, we have had back to back bad years about 4 times. Good years outnumber bad years by 3:1 to 6:1 and the best years are huge relative to the worse years. Don't get too worried about day to day snapshots, think long term because ":time" is an investors friend.

Multiple accounts plus: may be more diversified if the first fund is a narrowly cast portfolio like a sector fund

Negatives: may lead to more fees, more the track, more paperwork, and if you get a general fund in two locations you have a lot of overlap of holdings not more diversification.

Learn more about your investments and be patient. This is not sitcom where everything happens in 30 minutes.