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I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but here is how I understand it:
IRA - retirement account..put money in now, don't touch it until you retire or you have to pay penalties. You find an investment firm and set up your IRA. they pool your money and invest in stocks and bonds. You get money when those stocks and bonds go up, you loose money when they go down.
CD- Certificate of Deposit. You give the money to a bank for a pre determined amount of time and a preset interest rate. The bank invests the money and as long as the stocks/bonds do well, you get the interest. If they don't, you loose money. You can get the money if you need it, but you get penalized.
Money Market Account - like a limited savings account. You will earn interest, but not as much as in a CD or IRA. You have access to your money and can make a certain small number of withdraws in a given time period before incurring penalties. Something like 3 a year maybe.
Hope this helps. Again, if I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will correct me.
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