How can I invest my $100?
What is your investing goal? And what do you mean by investing? Do you necessarily mean investing in the stock market or are you just looking to grow your money? Also, will you be able to add to that amount on a regular basis going forward? If you are just looking for a way to get $100 into the stock market, your best option may be DRIP investing. (DRIP stands for Dividend Re-Investment Plan.) The idea is that you buy shares in a company (typically directly from the company) and then the money from the dividends are automatically used to buy additional fractional shares. Most DRIP plans also allow you to invest additional on a monthly basis (even fractional shares). The advantages of this approach for you is that many DRIP plans have small upfront requirements. I just looked up Coca-cola's and they have a $500 minimum, but they will reduce the requirement to $50 if you continue investing $50/month. The fees for DRIP plans also generally fairly small which is going to be important to you as if you take a traditional broker approach too large a percentage of your money will be going to commissions. Other stock DRIP plans may have lower monthly requirements, but don't make your decision on which stock to buy based on who has the lowest minimum: you only want a stock that is going to grow in value. They primary disadvantages of this approach is that you will be investing in a only a single stock (I don't believe that can get started with a mutual fund or ETF with $100), you will be fairly committed to that stock, and you will be taking a long term investing approach. The Motley Fool investing website also has some information on DRIP plans : http://www.fool.com/DRIPPort/HowToInvestDRIPs.htm . It's a fairly old article, but I imagine that many of the links still work and the principles still apply If you are looking for a more medium term or balanced investment, I would advise just opening an online savings account. If you can grow that to $500 or $1,000 you will have more options available to you. Even though savings accounts don't pay significant interest right now, they can still help you grow your money by helping you segregate your money and make regular deposits into savings. "Sure. For starters, you can put it in a savings account. Don't laugh, they used to pay noticeable interest. You know, back in the olden days.  You could buy an I-bond from Treasury Direct. They're a government savings bond that pays a specified amount of interest (currently 0%, I believe), plus the amount of the inflation rate (something like 3.5% currently, I believe). You don't get paid the money -- the I-bond grows in value till you sell it. You can open a discount brokerage account, and buy 1 or more shares of stock in a company you like. Discount brokerages generally have a minimum of $500 or so, but will waive that if you set the account up as an IRA. Scot Trade, for instance. (An IRA, in case you didn't know, is a type of account that's tax free but you can't touch it till you turn 59 1/2. It's meant to help you save for retirement.) Incidentally, watch out of ""small account"" fees that some brokerages might charge you. Generally they're annual or monthly charges they'd charge you to cover their costs on your account -- since they're certainly not going to make it in commissions. That IRA at Scot Trade is no-fee. Speaking of commissions, those will be a big chunk of that $100. It'll be like $7-$10 to buy that stock -- a pretty big bite. However, many of these discount brokerages also offer some mutual funds for no commission. Those mutual funds, in turn, have minimums too, but once again if your account's an IRA many will waive the minimum or set it low -- like $100." You could also start a business.  I ran a project called the Thousand Rand Challenge a few years ago in South Africa where we supported people in starting a business for about $100 each.  Some of them were surprisingly profitable. You can find a few ideas at the wiki site. Yes, it is.  Got to start somewhere.  Typically directly through a company itself. Check out this site that lists a bunch of them and their minimum requirements.  Not many only accept $100 but there are a few. ie. ACTIVEnergy Income Fund, CIBC, COMPASS Income Fund, Suncor Energy Inc. and a few others. "There are websites out there that let people apply for micro-loans, and let other people fund those loans, and get a percent of the interest back as the loans are paid off. I have heard of people with spare cash ""investing"" in these sites. However, I don't think there is a guarantee of return of your money, and I have heard mixed reviews by people, so I will not link to any such sites here." A safe investment would be to get a 5-year CD from Ally Bank.  No minimum deposit and no monthly maintenance fees.  1.74% APY at the moment.  I would choose a 5-year CD since the early withdrawal penalty is only 60 days interest, which will be negligible for a $100 investment and increasing the term significantly increases your interest rate. Regarding other suggestions: Even if you find a way purchase stock commission free, it will probably cost a $5-$10 commission to sell, wiping out probably a year or two of gains.  Also, I-Bonds must be held for a year minimum, which is problematic. At the end of the day, it's probably not really worth your time to do any of these.  $2 a year or $5 a year, it's still fairly insignificant and your time is surely worth more than that.
"There are two ways you can ""cash in."" 1) Buy enough additional shares to bring your share total to 100, then exercise the put. 2) Sell the put in the open market for a profit." "TLDR:  Yes you can. That is quite a steep price to pay for a trade.  I've used TradeKing previously, which would charge you $5 for that same trade.  Some other brokers are more or less expensive, and it is normally representative of the service one receives.  One option would be Scottrade.  While they are much more expensive than TradeKing, they offer a much higher level of service.  Even at $17 a trade, you'll save a lot of money over the Edward Jones trade. A big question here is who does your investing now?  Most people are pretty horrible at managing their own investments.  Some professional advice is probably in order.  For most they discover this when their investments are small, mitigating any mistakes made.  You don't have that luxury.  I would highly recommend making sure you have people that can help you make good decisions. The more I think about it the more I like the move to Scottrade (no affiliation) or one like that (Charles Schwab is another option).  With Scottrade you can go into a local branch and talk things over.  I think they offer some professional management as well.  Schwab will offer the latter but not the former.  However you can call them up and talk on the phone.  Another option is to go with Fidelity and have them manage at least part of your money.  Of course you can always just do a professional, independent money manager. Another option is to renegotiate with Edward Jones.  Something like:  ""Sorry but this is ridiculous, you need to do much better or I am moving all my money.""  Its much cheaper to charge you $100 for that same trade than lose the whole account." Investing it in what? Unless you're putting it into an account that lets you avoid taxes on the income, your $100k becomes about $74k after federal income taxes. If you take $50k of that and invest it, you're now at $24k. You're living a very barebones life at that point. "First off, monozok is right, at the end of the day, you should not accept what anyone says to do without your money - take their suggestions as directions to research and decide for yourself.  I also do not think what you have is too little to invest, but that depends on how liquid you need to be.  Often in order to make a small amount of money grow via investments, you have to be willing to take all the investment profits from that principle and reinvest it.  Thus, can you see how your investment ability is governed by the time you plan to spend without that money?  They mantra that I have heard from many people is that the longer you are able to wait, the more 'risk' you can take.  As someone who is about the same age as you (I'm 24) I can't exactly say yet that what I have done is sure fire for the long term, but I suggest you adopt a few principles: 1) Go read ""A Random Walk Down Wall Street"" by Burton G. Malkiel.  A key point for you might be that you can do better than most of these professional investors for hire simply by putting  more money in a well selected index fund.  For example, Vanguard is a nice online service to buy indexes through, but they may require a minimum.  2) Since you are young, if you go into any firm, bank, or ""financial planner,"" they will just think you are naive and try to get you to buy whatever is best for them (one of their mutual funds, money market accounts, annuities, some flashy cd).   Don't.  You can do better on your own and while it might be tempting because these options look more secure or well managed, most of the time you will barely make above inflation, and you will not have learned very much. 3) One exciting thin you should start learning now is about algorithmic trading because it is cool and super efficient. quantopian.com is a good platform for this.  It is a fun community and it is also free. 4) One of the best ways I have found to watch the stock market is actually through a stock game app on my phone that has realtime stock price feed.  Seeking Alpha has a good mobile app interface and it also connects you to news that has to do with the companies you are interested in." What could a small guy with $100 do to make himself not poor To answer the question directly, not much. Short of investing in something at the exact moment before it goes bananas, then reinvesting into a bigger stock and bigger etc, it's super high risk. A better way is to sacrifice some small things, less coffee, less smokes, less going out partying so that instead of having $100, you have $100 a week. This puts you into a situation where you can save enough to become a deposit on an appreciating asset (choose your own asset class, property in AU for me). Take out a loan for as much as you can for your $100 a week payment and make it interest only with an offset against it, distributions from shares can either be reinvested or put into the offset or in the case of property, rent can be put against the offset, pretty soon you end up with a scenario where you have cash offsetting a loan down to nothing but you still have access to the cash, invest into another place and revalue your asset, you can take out any equity that has grown and put that also into your offset. Keep pulling equity and using the money from the offset as deposits on other assets (it kind of works really well on property) and within 15 years you can build an empire with a passive income to retire on. The biggest thing the rich guys get that the poor guys don't is that debt is GOOD, use someone else's money to buy an appreciating asset then when you pay it back eventually, you own the growth. Use debt to buy more debt for exponential growth. Of course, you need to also invest your time to research what you are investing in, you need to know when you make the decision to buy that it will appreciate, it's no good just buying off a tip, you may as well drop your money on the horses if you want to play it like that. Fortunately, one thing we all have in common regardless of our money is time, we have time which we can invest. "The ""$1000 is no money at all"" people are amusing me. Way back in the mists of time, a very young me invested on the order of ~$500 in a struggling electronics manufacturer I had a fondness for. An emotional investment, not much money, but enough that I could get a feel for what it was like owning stock in something. That stock's symbol was AAPL. This is admittedly a rare outcome, but $1000 invested over the long term isn't not worth doing. If for no other reason then when the OP has ""real"" money, he'll have X+$1000 invested rather than X, assuming 0% return, which I doubt. It's a small enough amount that there are special considerations, but it's a solid opportunity for learning how the market works, and making a little money. Anyway, my advice to the OP is as follows:" With 100K, I would dump the first 95K into something lame like a tax advantaged bond or do as the others here suggested.  My alternative would be to take the remaining 5K and put into something leveraged.  For instance, 5K would be more than enough to buy long term LEAPS options on the SPY ETF.    @ Time of post, you could get 4 contracts on the DEC 2017 leaps at the $225 strike (roughly 10% out of the money) for under $1200 apiece.  Possibly $1100 if you scalp them. 4 * $1200 = $4800 at risk. 4 * $22500 = $90,000 = amount of SPY stock you control with your $4800. If the market drops, SPY never reaches $225 in the next 3 years and you are out the $4800, but can use that to reduce capital gains and still have the $95K on the sidelines earning $950 or so per year.  Basically you'd be guaranteed to have $97K in the bank after two years. If the market goes up significantly before 2018, you'll still have 95K in the bank earning a measly 1%, but you've also got 4 contracts which are equal to $90K shares of S&P 500.  Almost as if every single dollar was invested.  Bad news, if SPY goes up 20% or more from current levels over the next three years you'll unfortunately have earned some taxable income.  Boo freaking hoo. https://money.stackexchange.com/a/48958/13043 The standard advice is that stocks are all over the place, and bonds are stable. Not necessarily true. Magazines have to write for the lowest common denominator reader, so sometimes the advice given is fortune-cookie like. And like mbhunter pointed out, the advertisers influence the advice. When you read about the wonders of Index funds, and see a full page ad for Vanguard or the Nasdaq SPDR fund, you need to consider the motivation behind the advice. If I were you, I would take advantage of current market conditions and take some profits. Put as much as 20% in cash.  If you're going to buy bonds, look for US Government or Municipal security bond funds for about 10% of your portfolio. You're not at an age where investment income matters, you're just looking for some safety, so look for bond funds or ETFs with low durations. Low duration protects your principal value against rate swings. The Vanguard GNMA fund is a good example. $100k is a great pot of money for building wealth, but it's a job that requires you to be active, informed and engaged. Plan on spending 4-8 hours a week researching your investments and looking for new opportunities. If you can't spend that time, think about getting a professional, fee-based advisor. Always keep cash so that you can take advantage of opportunities without creating a taxable event or make a rash decision to sell something because you're excited about a new opportunity. "This may be a great idea, or a very bad one, or it may simply not be applicable to you, depending on your personal circumstances and interests. The general idea is to avoid passive investments such as stocks and bonds, because they tend to grow by ""only"" a few percent per year. Instead, invest in things where you will be actively involved in some form. With those, much higher investment returns are common (but also the risk is higher, and you may be tied down and have to limit the traveling you want to do). So here are a few different ways to do that: Get a college degree, but only if you are interested in the field, and it ends up paying you well. If you aren't interested in the field, you won't land the $100k+ jobs later. And if you study early-childhood education, you may love the job, but it won't pay enough to make it a good investment. Of course, it also has to fit with your life plans, but that might be easier than it seems. You want to travel. Have you thought about anthropology, marine biology or archeology? Pick a reputable, hard-to-get-into, academic school rather than a vocation-oriented oe, and make sure that they have at least some research program. That's one way to distinguish between the for-profit schools (who tend to be very expensive and land you in low-paying jobs), and schools that actually lead to a well-paying future. Or if your interest runs more in a different direction: start a business. Your best bet might be to buy a franchise. Many of the fast-food chains, such as McDonalds, will let you buy as long as you have around $300k net worth. Most franchises also require that you are qualified. It may often make sense to buy not just one franchised store, but several in an area. You can increase your income (and your risk) by getting a loan - you can probably buy at least $5 million worth of franchises with your ""seed money"". BTW, I'm only using McDonalds as an example. Well-known fast food franchises used to be money-making machines, but their popularity may well have peaked. There are franchises in all kinds of industries, though. Some tend to be very short-term (there is a franchise based on selling customer's stuff on ebay), while others can be very long-lived (many real-estate brokerages are actually franchises). Do be careful which ones you buy. Some can be a ""license to print money"" while others may fail, and there are some fraudsters in the franchising market, out to separate you from your money. Advantage over investing in stocks and bonds: if you choose well, your return on investment can be much higher. That's generally true for any business that you get personally involved in. If you do well, you may well end up retiring a multimillionaire. Drawback: you will be exposed to considerable risk. The investment will be a major chunk of your net worth, and you may have to put all your eggs in none basket. If your business fails, you may lose everything. A third option (but only if you have a real interest in it!): get a commercial driver's license and buy an 18-wheeler truck. I hear that owner-operators can easily make well over $100k, and that's with having to pay off a bank loan. But if you don't love trucker culture, it is likely not worth doing. Overall, you probably get the idea: the principle is to use your funds as seed money to launch something profitable and secure, as well as enjoyable for you." "First off, the answer to your question is something EVERYONE would like to know. There are fund managers at Fidelity who will a pay $100 million fee to someone who can tell them a ""safe"" way to earn interest. The first thing to decide, is do you want to save money, or invest money. If you just want to save your money, you can keep it in cash, certificates of deposit or gold. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. For example, gold tends to hold its value over time and will always have value. Even if Russia invades Switzerland and the Swiss Franc becomes worthless, your gold will still be useful and spendable. As Alan Greenspan famously wrote long ago, ""Gold is always accepted."" If you want to invest money and make it grow, yet still have the money ""fluent"" which I assume means liquid, your main option is a major equity, since those can be readily bought and sold. I know in your question you are reluctant to put your money at the ""mercy"" of one stock, but the criteria you have listed match up with an equity investment, so if you want to meet your goals, you are going to have to come to terms with your fears and buy a stock. Find a good blue chip stock that is in an industry with positive prospects. Stay away from stuff that is sexy or hyped. Focus on just one stock--that way you can research it to death. The better you understand what you are buying, the greater the chance of success. Zurich Financial Services is a very solid company right now in a nice, boring, highly profitable business. Might fit your needs perfectly. They were founded in 1872, one of the safest equities you will find. Nestle is another option. Roche is another. If you want something a little more risky consider Georg Fischer. Anyway, what I can tell you, is that your goals match up with a blue chip equity as the logical type of investment. Note on Diversification Many financial advisors will advise you to ""diversify"", for example, by investing in many stocks instead of just one, or even by buying funds that are invested in hundreds of stocks, or indexes that are invested in the whole market. I disagree with this philosophy. Would you go into a casino and divide your money, putting a small portion on each game? No, it is a bad idea because most of the games have poor returns. Yet, that is exactly what you do when you diversify. It is a false sense of safety. The proper thing to do is exactly what you would do if forced to bet in casino: find the game with the best return, get as good as you can at that game, and play just that one game. That is the proper and smart thing to do." Yes under certain circumstances! Educate yourself first. Consider algorithmic trading when you code your strategies and implement your ideas - a bit easier for psychology. And let the computer to trade for you. Start with demo account without taking personal risk. Only after a year of experience try small amount of cash like you said 100$. Avoid trade when big news events are released. Stick to strategy, use money management, stop loss, write results in the journal... learn & improve... be careful it is very hard journey. "I have money to invest. Where should I put it? Anyone who answers with ""Give it to me, I'll invest it for you, don't worry."" needs to be avoided. If your financial advisor gives you this line or equivalent, fire him/her and find another. Before you think about where you should put your money, learn about investing. Take courses, read books, consume blogs and videos on investing in stocks, businesses, real estate, and precious metals. Learn what the risks and rewards are for each, and make an informed decision based on what you learned. Find differing opinions on each type of investment and come to your own conclusions for each. I for example, do not understand stocks, and so do not seriously work the stock market.  Mutual funds make money for the folks selling them whether or not the price goes up or down. You assume all the risk while the mutual fund advisor gets the reward. If you find a mutual fund advisor who cannot recommend the purchase of a product he doesn't sell, he's not an advisor, he's a salesman. Investing in business requires you either to intimately understand businesses and how to fund them, or to hire someone who can make an objective evaluation for you. Again this requires training. I have no such training, and avoid investing in businesses. Investing in real estate also requires you to know what to look for in a property that produces cash flow or capital gains. I took a course, read some books, gained experience and have a knowledgeable team at my disposal so my wins are greater than my losses. Do not be fooled by people telling you that higher risk means higher reward. Risks that you understand and have a detailed plan to mitigate are not risks. It is possible to have higher reward without increasing risk. Again, do your own research. The richest people in the world do not own mutual funds or IRAs or RRSPs or TFSAs, they do their own research and invest in the things I mentioned above." Citibank just sent me a $100 check. Here's how I got it: "You can certainly try to do this, but it's risky and very expensive. Consider a simplified example. You buy 1000 shares of ABC at $1.00 each, with the intention of selling them all when the price reaches $1.01. Rinse and repeat, right? You might think the example above will net you a tidy $10 profit. But you have to factor in trade commissions. Most brokerages are going to charge you per trade. Fidelity for example, want $4.95 per trade; that's for both the buying and the selling. So your 1000 shares actually cost you $1004.95, and then when you sell them for $1.01 each, they take their $4.95 fee again, leaving you with a measly $1.10 in profit. Meanwhile, your entire $1000 stake was at risk of never making ANY profit - you may have been unlucky enough to buy at the stock's peak price before a slow (or even fast) decline towards eventual bankruptcy.  The other problem with this is that you need a stock that is both stable and volatile at the same time. You need the volatility to ensure the price keeps swinging between your buy and sell thresholds, over and over again. You need stability to ensure it doesn't move well away from those thresholds altogether. If it doesn't have this weird stable-volatility thing, then you are shooting yourself in the foot by not holding the stock for longer: why sell for $1.01 if it goes up to $1.10 ten minutes later? Why buy for $1.00 when it keeps dropping to $0.95 ten minutes later? Your strategy means you are always taking the smallest possible profit, for the same amount of risk. Another method might be to only trade each stock once, and hope that you never pick a loser. Perhaps look for something that has been steadily climbing in price, buy, make your tiny profit, then move on to the next company. However you still have the risk of buying something at it's peak price and being in for an awfully long wait before you can cash out (if ever). And if all that wasn't enough to put you off, brokerages have special rules for ""frequent traders"" that just make it all the more complicated. Not worth the hassle IMO." In a system where electronic payment is well developed you can consider the following 2 scenarios: Now let us zoom in. Regardless of what costs are actually charged, it should not be hard to see which system is most (real cost) efficient once electronical payments are well developed. And so, the conclusion is not hard to reach: