Looking for a firm to invest with which offers low starting balances...

[Night201]

Let me be more clear. I want to start investing, but I can't put down like $3000 to open a portfolio as some places charge. I'm hoping to open one which can take money from my paycheck automatically every 2 weeks and start with little or no money down. Do any of you know any reliable investment firms that offer something like this?

 

[PsychoAndy]

$3000? When I opened my account the minimum was $5k.

You might want to look into a mutual fund. You can basically cut them a check at your leisure and let them do all the work. Every fund does their own thing so I suggest you go prospectus shopping.

 

[Night201]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm looking to do, just thought I would save some time if anyone has done it or knows of a firm which offers a low starting balance.

 

[wsking]

for the mutual funds and low balance start, americancentury and invesco....but theres load have minimum of $50 ACH

 

[glenn1]

Here's two you can check out...

Sharebuilder.com

BuyAndHold.com

Cheers

 

[Ameesh]

you can start a Dividend Reinvestmant Program (DRIP), you can just send check every month and it will keep buying partial shares for you.

 

[GooberPHX420]

Night201, Are you a wells fargo banker? Err do you have an acct with them? I know they offer a plan where you can automatically take any amount you choose from each direct deposit paycheck and they will buy stocks for you at a small fee...Im gonna look a lot more into that once I get my Direct Deposit set up..

 

[CPA]

BuyandHold and Stockbuilder are nice, but why have them do something for a fee when you can do it on your own for free by picking up the phone.

A lot of companies have DRIPs that you can get into by working with the company. No loads, no commission (until you sell) and notransaction fees to buy. Exxon, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, McDonalds are just a few. They usually have very low requirement to get in (some, like Exxon, you only have to buy one share to start out with). After you get in, you can have them directly take money out of your bank account for no fee with as little as $25/month.

As for mutual funds, try Alger or American Century. Usually $500 or less to open and they can deduct a monthly amount for no fee.

The WSJ has an annual listing of all of the funds, their phone numbers and min to open.

Or go to the local bookstore and pick up a book that gives you that info.

The third route is to open a Datek, Etrade or other online broker account for $500. Then trade whatever you want. Most will throw in some free trades. Just keep in mind that a buy and sell on the same investment are counted as a trade each (2 x $10 to buy and sell).

 

[Pliablemoose]

Prefaced with: "Never take advice from an internet bulliten board."

SPY is a Standard & Poor's index , trading around $107 & IJS is the small cap version of the same thing trading @ $96; you can avoid the overhead of mutual funds & roll your own index fund. Index funds are hard to beat & tend to outperform 80-90% of the stock pickers. Start an account with ETrade or Ameritrade...

The market will be soft for some time, so it's a good time to dollar cost average into these, (ie: buy a small amount @ set intervals).