Expert: Dr. Joseph de Beauchamp - 5/20/2007

Question
Dear Dr. Beauchamp, My name is Tim and I'm a Junior at the University of South Alabama majoring in History and Sociology. Anyways, I've been saving my money this summer and I'm interesting in doing some type of investing with my money instead of just letting it sit there. I was just wondering if you could give me some advice on what I could do. I have about $1000 I am willing to invest. Thank you very much for your time.
Tim  

Answer
You might try reading through the large Morningstar mutual fund book at the local library? This is best in the library because of the 10,000 pages. You have a great many choices of mutual funds in this book.

However ...

I think I will send you down to the local bank. This is a no fee idea. I would have you go to the bank and look over the U.S. Saving Bonds. These have no risk and no cost, and why only at a bank can you buy them. I think the investment market is going to be very slow. I think you can buy $25 plus per US Savings EE bonds. This will do better than most of the funds in the next several years. You can only buy these at a bank ... EE bonds. Not much return comparable to the history of many of the mutual funds in the Morningstar  ... but rarely does history repeat itself on investments.

Dr. Joseph de Beauchamp