To John G..........

[Guest chris g]

Thanx John for all your information, its was very useful for me. and if i spell anything wrong well... I'm not that good of a speller. Anyway thanx John I have begun looking for the right place and trying to get that mag. you suggested, also that stock idea is quite tempting to do prehaps you can could give me some more information on that propersition you gave me. please send them to my e-mail at Gator_43_2000@yahoo.com

Chris G

[John G]

I don't like to give specific stock suggestions to anyone but long term close friends where I know the person/family well.

What I suggested to you as someone just getting started is that you consider a single broad based equity mutual fund. Just one to keep things simple and minimize annual fees. You can do that directly with a mutual fund family or through a brokerage or bank that supports mutual funds. I would recommned a NO LOAD fund, that means one that does not have either initial or termination commissions. One group of low expense, broad based equity mutual funds are the S&P500 or "Total Market" index funds. These have low portfolio turnover and typically very low annual expenses. The prototypical index fund is the Vanguard 500 which was one of the first of this kind. Annual expense are extremely low, I believe less than 0.3% and you "own" a portfolio of 500 major companies.

You will find a list of successful mutual funds in the March issue of Consumer Reports. The article covers a lot of basics.

Call the 800 numbers of a few mutual fund companies like T Rowe, Scudder, Janus, and Vanguard. Ask them for the "getting started" package. Some of them are excellant.

I do not recommend beginners invest in stocks because they ussually can not own a diverse portfolio with beginner assets. Beginners generally lack some of the experience to make educated choices and commissions are a significant cost.

I hope these suggestions are useful. It is your money. You need to make decisions and keep track of your funds. Learning to invest wisely is a lifelong process. Most investors learn as much from the mistakes they make (that's me, every year) then from hitting the books.

Good luck.