ChrisJericho

Like the other people have said, it depends on how much work you want to put into investing.

One of the simplest ways like Yak says to to buy an index fund. For instance, most major mutual fund companies (like Vanguard, T Rowe Price, etc) have an index fund that tracks the S&P 500, however well that index does is how well your fund does. These indexes are a good way to be diversified and the expense ratios are usually pretty low.

Of course there are many mutual funds that specialize in specific industries or sectors like Energy, Emerging Markets, Health Care etc, as long as you get these from a major company the expense ratios should be fairly low.

If you want to invest in individual stocks you will have to do devote a substantial amount of time doing the homework and keeping up on the latest news for each stock. Jim Cramer (the bald guy with the sleeves rolled up I believe you're talking about) says that for each stock you own, you need to do an hour of homework per week. So the amount of individual stocks you buy depends on how much free time you have to monitor them.

Generally you can do all this stuff within one major company (like I said Vanguard, T Rowe Price, Fidelity etc). So you can have a few mutual funds, a few stocks, a money market account, you don't need to have a personal broker. Almost everything can be done online (except for the initial setup process which usually requires some sort of real signature).

Of course I'm not a financial adviser, and there's always risk involved, but I hope that helped.

Nice thread Soma, that should be stickied !

__________________
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows us that faith proves nothing." - Friedrich Nietzsche