Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire I have $500 to invest

Look at Vanguard Mutual Funds.

Comment bases on 40 years investment experience.

If you are willing to work the investment as opposed to "put the money there and forget about it" there are many options. Of late I am doing very well with Fidelity mutual funds in automotive, construction/housing, Japan, biotech, defense and transportation. But, I watch them every day and do a quarterly review and adjust where necessary. For the former scenario I would go with a Fidelity Freedom fund indexed to the year you would like to start spending the money.

Park the money in an index fund and forget it for 18 years.

Buy GILD @ 55

should be able too get a brick of 22lr if you add a few bucks too it.

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Alaska Airlines has done me fine in the last year. I got lucky with the timing admittedly. (Also, I'm an employee- and they have this employee stock thing going.) 4K in withholded employee payroll sunk into stock is now worth over 10K.

A year ago (about the time I signed up) it split from about 74 to 32. It was back over 63 today - and their philosophy is to keep it affordable. I was thinking a few weeks ago that 54 was expensive. I'm an idiot. I kinda think it will split again once it reaches 73 or 100 again. They have a good management/expansion plan, I think. 4 or 5 JDPowell awards in a row. 1st quarter is usually a loser, but they made a mega-million profit this time around. Agressive marketing and attention to detail (If I can believe my employee bulletins).

Facing some challenges from Jet Blue, Alliance, Spirit and other ultra-low cost carriers.

I wish I'd sunk my 10K mad money into AS stock at 40 instead of a Yamaha 40 Jet, fitted to boat....

I'm getting pom-poms and a skirt next week...

A little extra thought:
The key here will be adding to the initial $500. IMO it would be prudent to get the fund to $1K,$3K, $5K...$10k by aggressively adding to it monthly if lump summing is not an option. Amazing what happens to a starter $10k fund that is smartly invested. So maybe you park the initial $500 in a fixed income or buy $500 worth of Exxon etc..basically something relatively safe and then kick in on a monthly basis till you hit your goal $$... Its not hard. It is important to remember that the initial phase of wealth accumulation for most of us is getting expenses in check,then set up the saving plan then invest. Once you reach the benefit of compounding interest/growth then work towards getting enough invested that it makes more than you can save on a annual basis. Good luck with the fund you will thank yourself later in life.

A parting thought as well: Really get to know and understand the fees and what it is actually costing you to invest. Understand the reasons for putting tax inefficient investments in tax favorable/deferred accounts and tax efficient funds in taxable accounts.