What are the best mutual funds for a ROTH IRA?

Depends on your tolerance for risk. Being a Roth is not relevant to this.

If you are afraid of losing money than leaning toward bonds and Government securities is up your alley.

If you want a bigger risk/reward situation go with growth or emerging markets.

If you are in the middle of the road on the risk issue go with indexing or choose those new fangled mutual funds that are designed for retirement in 10, 15, 20 years etc.

If you check out Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Vanguard et. al. you will find these funds that automatically change their investments the closer you get to retirement. Seem like a cool bullet proof way of re-balancing the portfolio without all the tedious switching.

Good luck.

Here's a place where you can look at and consider some funds ...click back and forth, look at "performance", "rating", etc.Pay attention to the columns that show the "returns" for the year to date ( YTD), for the past 3 or 5 years... you'll see that some funds are averaging 8%...while others get into the 40's...

Sooooo... it's up to you!! You are young, you can afford some risk for awhile ( just because if things " go bad" you've got a lot of time 'til retirement to make up for any losses)...and if things " go well" you're ahead of the game- off to a good start....

Generally...if you want to be safe, you stick with something " balanced" or "blended"....a little risk would be " small" or "mid-cap" growth....if you're going with " what's happening NOW...get into one of the "global" or " international" funds....look at the returns for PRLAX, or FLATX, or some U.S Global funds....

Bounce around on those pages and charts...you'll find something...AND, depending on who you're investing that IRA with...you can trade out of most funds in three or six months...

Hope you don't have to ! Good luck!

Hope you look back at this !! I forgot to enter the " place" !!

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/partsub/funds...

There are over 10,000 mutual funds. If you do not have the time to do your own research go to an investment adviser.

Many banks have in house investment advisers. Check with your bank and see if they can help you out.

I recommend learning as much as you can and avoiding advisors. Morningstar.com has a free "classroom" and much of it is on mutual funds. And try Investopedia.com--great site for learning.

I'll say this though: Go with NO-LOAD funds only.

That depends on your age and your goals and dreams. I read a book called "The ABC's of Making Money" where they cover this topic and state that only one company in the U.S.A. offers a free analysis and helps you meet your goals & dreams by putting a plan in place, it's called Primerica which is part of Citigroup.

u should pick up Money magazine...they have a good analysis of funds every month.

Dont buy mutual funds, buy good growth stocks mo, pcu, aapl,abt.