What's the best investment idea for a young guy?

[starshard0]

Oh wow, that's almost my story exactly. 19 and in the Army. I'd say go for the IRA, if your TSP is matched I'd go for that too. Even if it's not, it's probably a good idea to put 1-10% into your TSP every month if only because it's tax-free. I also try and put $500 into mutual funds every one or two months. Depending on where you're stationed, they might have a financial guy around. I know we had to hear him talk about budgets and financial stuff when I first got here.

[Johansen8]

The key is to spend less than you make and make it a priority to pay yourself first. Children do what feels good, adults devise a plan and follow it. Decide today that you are going to be on a written game plan, write up a budget and trim your expenses. The only way that you will build wealth is when you become fed up with the debt that you are in and the way you are managing money and decide that you will be wealthy one day.

[mike313t]

I would pay off your debt and start up a Roth IRA. The tax-advantages of a Roth IRA are huge. Your earnings grow tax-free and the distributions are tax free. Also, you can take out your contributions at any time tax and penalty free. I'd rather pay taxes now rather than later.

If you have money left over after that, maybe look into some index funds.

[donnyg16]

I would definitely allocate a certain percentage of your income to a roth IRA. Just make sure you do your research before choosing which one to invest in.

[skeet]

Putting money into well-known stocks usually doesn't have too much risk. Stocks such as Walmart, Pepsi, Coca-Cola etc are generally pretty stable. But is important to definitely research where you want to invest in.

Personally, I would go after market timing since you are in it for the long run. You wont be looking to pull out any of the money for 10+ years, and by then if the economy hasn't gone back to normal...Well I don't want to think about it if we still have a weak economy for that long...

[Gootsy]

Learn as much as you can. Save as much as you can.

I like investing in index funds or Index ETFs. Low fees and you can take advantage of the recent discount. It very well might drop even more over the next year, so would be good to dollar cost average. Actually I'd be like this:

If you have 10k to spare: Invest like 6k in the various index funds (US/International/emerging market/bonds if you want) Then DCA the last 4k over 1-2 years with your monthly contributions. If there's a big dip in any of the funds you choose, you can increase the contribution to take advantage of the big discount.

I agree that 'market timing' is generally long term bad, but if you feel more comfortable playing it a little safe, then it's not too big a deal. It would be a huge deal(bad) if you waited too long before putting your money in equities.

I wouldn't even touch individual stocks until you have at least 20k in your portfolio.

[FrugalNYC]

Personally I think you should dabble in one or two stocks just to get a feel and "LEARN" about online trading etc... Don't put too much into it, though now is probably the best time to invest since everything is down, which means in a few years, most likely you will make some gains. If you do, don't let it go to your head. As I said before, everything is down, if a company survives and has a decent market share...it will likely make some gains.