Looking for investment recommendations

[argo4hustler]

This is my first post here but I have been viewing the forum for a couple months now. I was hoping you guys could give me a little help. I have zero knowledge of investing; I have been trying to get assistance from previous posts but most I dont understand. My situation is I am a 19 year old student who has been playing poker for the last year or two. I have around 400k, 30% of which is in poker sites, and the rest is in a 4.5% liquid CD that my bank talked me into. I dont want my money to be locked up for long periods of time, and I am not scared of taking the risk of losing a nice sum of money if the benefit can be large. What type of investments would you recommend? Do you recommend that I go to a place like fidelity and hire someone? Or do you think that the investments I should be in I can manage by myself? I would like to keep 100k online to make sure if I hit a tough run that I dont go broke on the site. We all know how hard it is moving money around now. I greatly appreciate your help.

[Dazarath]

Don't let the bank talk you into stupid things like that again. There are online savings accounts which pay more than 4.5%, and your money is still liquid. You should check out the stickied posts at the top of this forum. Some standard advice would be to open a brokerage account (Fidelity, Vanguard, etc), and put the money in some index funds. For example, a Wilshire 5000 index fund, or one of the international index funds available. I've heard some people make the suggestion of 2/3 Wilshire 5000, 1/3 international, before, if you want to keep it simple. Any money that you would like to be more liquid, keep it in an online savings account. Check out ING Direct, Emigrant Direct, HSBC.

[Thremp]

You are getting real close to the point it'd probably be better to hire a professional manager.

[argo4hustler]

many thanks dazarath, appreciate it

[argo4hustler]

What do you mean by the point at which to hire someone? Is it not worth it to hire someone unless you have a certain amount of money to work with?

[pig4bill]

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I dont want my money to be locked up for long periods of time, and I am not scared of taking the risk of losing a nice sum of money if the benefit can be large.

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About the only things that I can think of that meet these criteria are daytrading stocks, or trading options or futures. None of it is really considered investing. You can learn to do it yourself but it's a lot of work.

[Thremp]

[ QUOTE ]
What do you mean by the point at which to hire someone? Is it not worth it to hire someone unless you have a certain amount of money to work with?

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Like hiring a real wealth manager. Most of the good places take guys of 500k+ They do offer some flexibility to people who're saving large amounts. Like if you're 28 and out of med school with 40k but are depositing 5k a month. They'll work with you.

There are some people on this forum, who have the ability to do this stuff themselves, but not a huge amount. And with vast sums of money, I'd lean to the professional.

[gull]

Watch out for bad financial advisors though. Some are paid on commission and offer advice ans services that clash with your best interests.

If you like, I can tell you which financial advisors I believe to be the best in the nation.

Like Dazarath said above, index funds are the best option for you. If you get a good financial advisor, he'll be managing a portfolio of index funds for you.

[Thremp]

gull,

Yeah, the ones I'm most familiar with don't actually do funds. They instead buy and sell individual stocks. So they can copy a large index fund almost exactly. Some also give you the option to do more exciting things. Fees are steeper for smaller investors, but usually become quite comfortable >1mil.

[argo4hustler]

Could I get your recommendations on financial advisors? I think Ill be hiring somone