[aquaswim47]

Welcome Brian to the community; it is a pleasure to have you. We're all looking forward to your future postings and replies.

I think you follow Cramer's advice, you read the financial statements of the top ten or 25 companies in each mutual fund or ETF to evaluate the fund manager's picks. That way you're looking out for your own interests; it is even more important for you to read the financial statements if you are looking at individual stocks. If you take that route, you have to also do research via conference calls/annual reports before investing in individual companies. Invest between $500 to $1,000 in companies in at least $250 intervals, than move on to the next company. So with $2,500, you could buy five companies in 2 intervals or 10 companies each with $250 invested. You are most likely to succeed through a well-diversified mutual fund than you will with individual stocks.

I wish you invest well and wisely.

If you have $2,500 to invest, I would suggest a passively-index mutual fund with Fidelity through Fidelity brokerage. If you have $3,000 to invest, I suggest Vanguard. Some other reasonable options through a Scottrade broker would be Pax World Balanced Funds, Wilshire Funds, or ValueLine Funds. You want to use Scottrade to avoid a maintenance fee you would have through the broker itself and these funds are no-load, NTF fee funds with low to moderate expense ratios. With $3,000+, Vanguard Funds becomes another option, directly through Vanguard brokerage. Since this is long-term money, you could consider an aggressive growth fund or a value fund that invests broadly in companies. One example of an aggressive growth company is VLEOX - Value Line Emerging Opportunities Fund which invests mainly in small company issues or FIGRX - Fidelity International Discovery Fund. Two examples of value funds include Fidelity Value Fund (FDVLX) or its cousin Fidelity International Value Fund (FIVLX). A blend fund would be a mutual fund such as VGTSX or VTMSX through Vanguard. All of these are recommended; it is important to pick the fund that is consistent with your investment strategy. One advantage that Fidelity and Scottrade allow are dollar-cost averaging, while Vanguard needs an initial deposit of $3,000. From what you indicate, I would suggest FDVLX or FIVLX as a probable starter investment.

Proshare Funds is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that provides the ability to be more speculative on high-quality issuers. For example, they have a fund that doubles the risk (and return) of the Dow Jones industrial average. Low cost options include VTI (large companies mainly) or IOO international.

Another option is to buy five companies and make sure they are in different sectors of the market. One company should be a tech company, a retail company, a financial company, a biotech or consumer products company, a telecommunications company, a defense company, a healthcare company, oil/energy, or a conglomerate company (like GE, CAT, UTX, etc).

A great portfolio might consist of:

GOOG/MSFT/CSCO/SUNW - one tech company
MCD/JCP/SHLD/PNRA - one retail/restaurant company
RDS.A/OXY/SUN/XOM - energy company
JNJ/GSK/MRK - consumer products/healthcare company
UTX - conglomerate

or

WM - financial
TEVA - pharma company
LMT/GD/Northup - defense company
CAT - conglomerate
T - telecommunications