Latest responses to “The Power of Compound Interest” Copyright 2013, MoneyBlueBook.com 462630 2009-05-22T16:47:02-07:00 Raymond Albert, Congratulations on your affirmative decision to start investing at such an early age. Many of us often wish we could go back in time and start investing as early as you. However, since you are still 18 years old and have indicated that you are rather new to stock market investing, I would urge you to exercise great caution as your tread into this new adventure. I invested recklessly when I was in college and got badly burned. Now, I know better and have learned from my past failures. It's best not to trade short term swings but rather to invest in solid long term positions focused on value. My advice is to start out by opening a Roth IRA retirement account. Your earnings will accrue a steady rate of return tax free and you are free to invest in any stock or mutual funds of your choice. To open a Roth or even a traditional IRA account, you will have to select a broker. I recommend going with the more established and well known ones like TradeKing, TD Ameritrade, Sharebuilder, or Etrade. Once you have opened a Roth IRA account, I would recommend putting the money into an index or mutual fund, preferably one that tracks a broad index like an exchange traded fund (ETF). A few I'd recommend are the "SPY" and the "VTI" - both ETF funds track broad indexes. The SPY Index tracks the S&P 500 and the VTI Total Market fund tracks a huge basket of stocks and is one of the broadest index for the U.S. equity market. By taking these initial baby steps, you will gradually become more familiar with investing terminology and generate confidence in your long term positions. Good luck in your future pursuit of a career in medicine! 462640 2009-05-22T04:14:48-07:00 albert starcher hi raymond, my name is albert, i live in houston and im an 18 year old from cypress creek highschool about to graduate in a week. Around january of next year im suppose to recieve $10,000 from my brothers trust. my question to you (becasue you appear to know a thing or two about investing,) is how should i invest this money im either going to invest some or all not sure i plan to attend community college then goto SFA to finish out college then i plan to goto med school im aspiring to become an anesthesiologist if i choose to specialize other wise just a general physician. Also you can tell im very interested in learning how to invest and how to manipulate the stock market in my favor. If you know a thing or two, i would love to hear from you. thank you Raymond. 462620 2007-10-16T16:01:33-07:00 Raymond Hi Catherine, Far from it. I just chose to focus my investments in developing and emerging markets like China and Southeast Asia, excluding Japan. I think investors really need to rethink their conservative investment strategies and allocate more portfolio space for growth markets. I'm probably an extreme case, but my portfolio is comprised of nearly 100% emerging market funds. There are so many opportunities. I recently missed out on a stock I was tracking for several years. In the last few months, due to a China deal it just signed, the stock has soared nearly 400%...obviously I'm bummed that I missed the boat :( 462610 2007-10-16T15:50:47-07:00 CatherineL Hi Raymond. Did I read that right - your annual return is 40%? You must be a really smart investor. Compound interest has always fascinated me. 462600 2007-10-15T14:43:07-07:00 Marshall Middle Excellent articles, keep up the good work. 462590 2007-10-14T21:52:11-07:00 Raymond Mrs. Micah, I hope you are taking advantage of your youth and compound interest potential. Start saving! 462580 2007-10-14T21:31:42-07:00 Mrs. Micah Makes me glad to be young! 462570 2007-10-14T17:38:27-07:00 Wanda Hi Raymond, thanks for visiting my site. :) I also have a Flavia machine at work, but it's still hard to skip Starbucks for that.