What should I buy?

The general answer here is going to be to put it all in a can, then stick said can into a mattress, then dig a big hole and bury it all in your back yard.

Picking stocks ain't so cool unless you really know what you are doing.

Sit down with someone who knows what they are doing, explain your financial situation and what your goals are.

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Sit down with someone who knows what they are doing, explain your financial situation and what your goals are.

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Have a meeting tonight..just thought there might be a good word out there

If you must buy then buy a very broadly diversified fund or ETF. I think it would be best to park it on the sidelines.

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If you must buy then buy a very broadly diversified fund or ETF.

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Yep. Look into possibly going with treasuries or bond fund, etc.
If you are in this for the longer term, maybe consider an index fund or two. Something that might track the SAP or the Russell 2000. These kinds of investments have much lower fees/commisions, etc.
Generally for my long term stuff I like to have a global/international fund
Large cap growth fund
small cap growth fund
Bond fund

Also, if you are meeting with some cheesey rep from a place like American Express financial, etc, don't let them talk you into just their fund family if it is not what you need. They are going to of course make more money on this and it might not be what you are really looking for.

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For things like retirement accounts for younger people, now is the best time to get in.

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Yea, I'm 22 and my 401k is down 28% since I started it in January...

I can't worry about it though...

if they tell you any of the following things, fire them on the spot:

- stocks always go up in the long run
- now is the best time to be investing in stocks, because they are down.
- you pay this sales fee (load) because you get better performance.
- you should always mindlessly and consistently invest in a diversified portfolio, regardless of economic or market conditions.
- Look at this chart of XYZ fund. See how it's always gone up in the past?
- You should pick your investments based on their historical 5, 10, and 20 year track records.

A few questions to ask:
- Has your performance this year been better than zero?
- What can you do for me that I can't do myself?
- Why is your XYZ fund better than an index fund that has a fraction of the fees?
- What are YOU invested in? What return have you made in your own portfolio in the last 1 and 5 years?

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if they tell you any of the following things, fire them on the spot:

- stocks always go up in the long run
- now is the best time to be investing in stocks, because they are down.

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why?

I'm young and just started my career. Why wouldn't now be a good time to invest some money. I'd be cheaper and I wouldn't need any kind of returns on it for a very long time.

To be honest, the people on here that say to watch out for people who say that and to turn and run and such, it comes off just as skepticism. Can anyone explain their logic?

Well, better to start investing in stocks now than, say, 14 months ago. But at this point for a neophyte investor to start picking individual stocks, you're probably better off going to the boat and putting it all on black.

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What should I buy?

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$10K worth of Euro