Sometimes I find myself browing over the net and looking for the prices of shares of stocks of some online companies. I want to invest for the future and yet I still don't want to risk. Sometimes the net is fluctuating and I am afraid to lose much money.

Any suggestion? Consider investments which require low-costing.

I'm no whiz by any means but maybe you should go (carefully) with some higher risk investments (maybe only a hundred dollars or something) and then go with a large amount of safe investments. Though even with the safe investments, just invest what you can afford to lose. And only invest if you have a couple of months wages sitting in savings, easy to pull if needed.

Thanks, duck. I should also keep in mind not to be over confident that I have invested in something. Anything can happen anytime and if I am not smart enough, I might be the last to do something about losing...

I think if you don't want the risk that investment vehicles such as bonds can be really helpful as an option.

But, I think, overall you have to look to accept some degree of risk with investments - no certainties on the stock markets, but there are degrees of risk.

Agree with Brian, sort of "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" saying

Low cost investments, however, are more susceptible to scams because they can be disguised in to many ways.

I would suggest this link as further reading on this matter: oft.gov.uk/News/Press+releases/2005/18-05.htm

Bonds and funds will always have an element of risk attached to the investment cycle and realistically you should only ever put a quarter of your free capital into anything that is considered adventurous risk.

Good examples of advice below
6-9% ROI is very low risk and upto 85% of your liquid could be invested
9-12% ROI is low-medium and up to 65% of your liquid could be invested
12-15% is medium risk and never invest more than 50% of liquid
15% and above is adventurous such as Eastern European bonds and tech funds, this is where you would invest 25% of your liquid capital.

the only problem with most of the above is the buy-in levels required to get into funds and mirror funds. As an example it used to be the case that you would need US$8 million in liquid capital to access Lloyds of London and become a name now you can get in for as little as US$100,000. I can send you details of this to show you how I would invest to protect my capital

I think that, if you are not tolerant of much risk, you should look into placing your money into mutual funds. Diversify your money into several stock and bond funds, and don't worry. It's the best approach to "hands-off" investing.

I agree with the above poster as well. Keep it simple, and place your funds into a diversified portfolio of no-load mutual funds.