[jyl]

Some random thoughts:

1. If you feel the US stock market overall is a bargain at the present, you should consider an index fund. Low fees, low trading costs, will outperform the average portfolio manager, and if you are bullish on the asset class as a whole you may be willing to ride the broad market rather than stockpicking.

2. There are a lot of books on investing and trading, and some of them are genuinely worthwhile. There are also some good websites. There's also a ton of worthless books and websites where idiots throw around terrible advice, pump up stocks, and generally waste your time.

3. Seems to me one thing you should decide is if you are going to invest or trade. By "invest" I mean you have an asset allocation in mind (X% stocks, Y% bonds, Z% cash, etc), you're thinking fairly strategically and long-term in deciding where to put your money, and you're tending to keep your money there for years. By "trade" I mean you're actively playing the ups and downs of individual securities, and your holding periods are measured in weeks or days. And of course there's all kinds of points in between, and you could always choose to invest one part of your money and try trading with another part . . . I'm not saying one is better than the other, but the kind of research and books and so on will be different.

4. I rather doubt a personal money manager is going to be feasible or worthwhile if you only have a small amount of money. Like, under $100,000. If you are just starting out with a few thousand dollars I would be inclined to open an account with a discount brokerage that offers a large selection of mutual funds in addition to stock and bond trading (e.g. Charles Schwab), decide how much you're going to put in each asset class and where you want want to be on the investor / trader range, and proceed on your own with a lot of reading and asking people and learning. And if it is money that you can't afford to lose - such as the emergency funds you'll need to survive if you get laid off or the money you've been saving for a car or enagagement ring or whatever - then CASH is king. Just my opinion.

Hey,

tabs,

one area of bonds that still looks interesting to me is European government bonds. The idea is (a) European economies, particularly Germany, are in recession and need lower interest rates, even more so as the Stability Pact precludes the German government from using fiscal stimulus, (b) European Central Bank has so far resisted lowering interest rates like the US Fed has been doing, I actually recall only 1 small rate cut so far from the ECB, (c) when ECB finally does cut rates in earnest European government bonds should rise, (d) in the meantime you get some help from the weakening US dollar, assuming you are a USD investor. I know of one US mutual fund that invests 100% in European government bonds, ticker is BEGBX. What do you think?