Investing my own hard-earned money

Don't listen to anyone here.
No domestic funds. No 401Ks. No IRAs (unless for retirement or education). Waste of money. Waste of time. Waste of effort. Anyone been watching the market the last quarter? Seen the dollar's performance the last quarter? Seen this country's propensity for borrowing the last six years?
Find yourself a nice performing International Fund. One securely wrapped in energy and foreign currency and even gold. Dump every bit of expendable savings you have into it and thank me in five years.

 

So, how's the weather on Mars?

 

Is this serious? Why else would you have a 401k or IRA other than for retirement?

My advice...

1) Take full advantage of employer matching in your 401k, if offered. That's free money you're leaving behind if you don't.
2) Max out your annual IRA contribution, if possible. Traditional IRA contributions are tax deductible and can grow tax free until retirement.
3) Worry more about "investing" than "trading." If you're new to this, I would echo the comments above and invest in a basic mutual fund or even an index fund or ETF (which produce similar results with fewer fees).
4) If you're young, don't put your money in low-interest CDs, bonds, etc. You can go with more aggressive investments (stocks, growth mutual funds). Bonds are for retirees or those nearing retirement who need conservative offerings.
5) Start early, even if you can only save a paltry sum each month. The magic of compounding returns means you can retire much richer by starting at 25 instead of 35.

 

The rules are getting more complex for deducting contributions to an IRA. As they say on TV, consult your tax professional.

 

True...And if you're in a higher tax bracket, you're out of luck.

If you use TurboTax (or something like that), you can actually see much you would save/gain by making a traditional IRA contribution. And since you can make 2007 tax year contributions until April 2008, that's a good time to take advantage of the perk.

 

The question was for investment, not for retirement.

These are retirement investments. Although, there are many, many IRAs not associated with retirement accounts.

Perhaps the question posed isn't for retirement purposes.

CDs and Index accounts. Domestic Retirement Mutual funds and 401Ks and IRAs you can't touch for 35 years. Blah. Might as well stick the money under the mattress and pray all that money you're pumping into Social Security will be there when you hit 62.5 years.

The growth and performance is in Ireland and China. Foreign tech. Foreign industry. Add in energy and foreign currency.

Look at the projections just on the mutuals the next five years...
Look at your DOMESTIC mutuals commonly associated with 401Ks and FORIEGN or INTERNATIONAL mutuals that I've been thumping about....

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestfunds/2007/actively.html

 

There are many IRAs (Individual Retirement Accounts) not associated with retirement accounts? Explain, please.

 

I'm aware of the acronym.

Well, many use Roth IRAs as savings accounts. Because Roths afford the investor some of the benefits of the traditional IRA without many of the penalties associated with early withdrawls.

Education IRAs (aka Coverdell Education Accounts) allow for savings for dependents under umbrella tax protection the IRA affords the investor. A very, very smart way to save for an education for a family of modest means.