Mutual funds etc.

[college_boy]

I realize the best answer will be it depends but I'd like to get some advice from people who know what they're talking about. My idea is to open up three mutual funds from ING direct(low moderate and high risk) and take 300 dollars every month to put 100 dollars in each. I have a couple of questions: 1 is this the best and safest plan for long term growth. 2 Is ING direct a good place to invest? I know little to nothing about the stock market so excuse my ignorance. Any and all advice is welcome. Thanks

[mannika]

Assuming you have no investment experience, I would say that this is a good plan.

In terms of whether ING is a good place to invest, you probably want to look at what kind of MER (management expense ratio) they charge, as well as if there are any up-front purchase fees, or redemption fees when you withdraw.

Offhand, I do not know how ING's numbers compare, but assuming that you are investing in general money market, bond, or equity funds (i.e., with no specific focus for investment), the expected returns across all mutual funds will not be very different. Therefore, you should try and minimize the non-investment based expenses you will incur (go for low MERs, and low purchase/redemption fees).

Hope this helps, feel free to PM me if you want any other info.

[GeorgeF]

"is this the best and safest plan for long term growth."
As to the three mutual funds plan, if you put a low, a moderate, and a conservate together you end up with the whole stock market. You can save on expenses by buying a market index fund like the Russel 3000 or vanguard total market index.

A more important decision is how much you will but into catagories like stocks, US bonds, international bonds, cash and possibly at some point in the future gold and foreign currencies.

"Is ING direct a good place to invest?"
I suggest you look at expenses. If I read it right the expenses at ACBLX are 2% and there might be a front load.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=ACBLX

Unless you have a good reason for doing it I suggest you avoid expenses of greater than 1%. Try vanguard.com or ishares.com for low expense funds. Possibly PIMCO total return fund (if you want to pay for active management).