"I've been reading up on various strategies and now have joined with others at the Motley Fool. I have over $170K sitting in a money market fund from my 401 & 457. I want to follow some of the fool's recommendations, but am not sure how much to buy of the core recommendations. I also have read up on the P/E ratio and though it shouldn't be the one thing you take into consideration, Netflix and Amazon seems awfully high.... Any comments, suggestions?"

Forget about stock tips from TMF or anyone else.

I just had a friend that received a settlement of $185,000 who had never had any money to invest. He asked me for advise and here is what I told him: "put the money into a well diversified set of ETF's. I have an account at Fidelity and they have 30 iShare ETFs that you can trade with no commissions."

He is already retired so he settled for the Coffeehouse ETF portfolio using iShare ETFs:

40%-----AGG
10%-----IVV
10%-----IVE
10%-----EFA
10%-----IYR
10%-----IWN
10%-----JKJ

He purchased this portfolio for a total of $7.95 in commissions and started a 4% withdrawal rate which will be adjusted for inflation.

Not very sexy but it is relatively safe and he should have some left to leave to his heirs.

Good luck,

OxBeaux