Yes, it costs more to transport goods from production to suppliers, from suppliers to retailers. Price of food and goods goes up, petrol costs more too to the public, therefore there is less money to spend. With less money circulating price of goods goes up more, interest rates increase to keep a lid on inflation, property becomes expensive to buy, credit is more difficult to obtain creating less expenditure and more inflation.

The reason interest rates have not gone up yet and have been cut instead is due to the depressed housing market. Typically the fed with increase interest rates to combat inflation, however in our situation they have had to choose between two economic difficulties.

About as aggressively as you’d swim into shark-infested water. Surely you have an older relative you could ask for advice.
The day to invest in the stock market is when the bottom has been reached. Unfortunately, it is impossible for anyone to predict when that will happen.
A rule of thumb about the stock market: Only invest what you can afford to lose.

well if understood the market you would not ask questions like that so get you a book and read

If you’re a rookie in investing or stocks, go to
.

Open up a portfolio without using real money. You can give yourself as much or as little money to try out the market. The stocks you want to focus on is consumer staples, consumer discretionary, and healthcare. These are DEFENSIVE stocks that will survive through good and bad times. Most of my positions are in these stocks. Some names include 3M, Procter & Gamble, Kimberly Clark, Exxon Mobil, Walmart, Costco. Everybody’s got to eat and wipe their butts regardless of the state of economy. Many of these companies survived through the Great Depression.

That’s the benefits. You can sleep at night knowing your money is doing well. There are NO guarantees that you won’t lose money. It’s just that these stocks are the best. They pay good dividends too.

Then once you’re comfortable and test the waters of the market, you can finally put some real money in. Go to Scottrade.com. They’re excellent for beginners.

If you’re new to stocks, DON’T DAY TRADE. You’ll a rookie in a world of professionals. I tried day-trading with Citigroup and AIG when they were a little bit over $1. I had some luck at first, making about $30 a day but I was way over my head. My luck didn’t last long and I had to rethink my strategy.

Day trading involves A LOT of commissions to the broker. With all the commissions deducted from each trade, you’ll be lucky if you only lose half your money.

I would just day trade using Yahoo! Finance. Open a stimulation account, give yourself $100 worth of fake money and play it in the stimulation format. You’ll see what I mean by losing money every easily.

Good luck.

Since most no-load, low fee mutual funds require $1,000 or more to invest, and since you “don’t trust the market or yourself” I suggest you stay away from mutual funds and individual stocks. Instead, look to an ETF (exchange traded fund), which is a mutual fund that trades like a stock so they don’t have the $1,000+ minimum. For a one time low fee of $4 at, you can by a well diversified ETF that covers the entire US stock market. One good low cost ETF is Vanguard’s Total Market ETF. Its symbol is VTI.

First, no you do not have to be 18 to buy stock. Just like anything else, you have to have money to buy stock. To get a brokerage (stock) account as a minor (person under 18) someone related to you must also be on the account. Just like a checking or saving account at the bank wants your mom or dad to be on the account.
The way you make money with stock is easy but it is also easy to loose all the money - plus fee and stuff that the brokerage account charges. When you buy stock in “old navy” stores, you are buying into the fact that you think “old navy” will make money. So you buy 100 shares of “old navy” for say 1.00 a share (not the real price, just keeping it easy) So, you have spent 100 dollars. Now, “old navy” says that they are coming our with new shoes, or a new pant that does something. and everyone gets excited, and the price of old navy goes UP. to 1.25, So for your 100. dollars, if you sold your stock, you get your 100 dollars back, and make 20 dollars more 0.25 X100. But, then old navy starts selling their “new shoes” and they are ugly. and nobody buy them, they don’t sell, and the store looses money. and people say old navy is not doing good, and the price goes down. Now, your 100 dollars that you spent is worth 80 dollars, see, you sold lower then you bought, But, from that 80 dollars, the brokerage firm is also going to charge you to 1. Have the account. 2. Place the trade to BUY and SELL, and probably interest on the money. So, after they get their fees, then you get your money back, So, your 100 dollars is now about 65. Much less and there is not anything you can do about it. But, wait for the price to get better. Understand?

If you can get 10% guaranteed then I would put all of your savings into that. The stock market on average gains about 10%, but with the current conditions in the market it would be crazy not to take a guaranteed 10%. If you still don’t want to do that I would go with a couple long term growth mutual funds. Don’t invest in a single stock, especially since you will be in Iraq and probably will not have a lot of access to make changes.

GE,PFE,MMM,MO,DD,JNJ,YUM

To trade shares in market is not that hard as you think.
I won’t write copy on yahoo but any way you can read my articles about basic stock trade at my blog.

Hope it helps.
good luck in your invest