There's a guy here who just started out in this business on this board....EagleArmsHBAR or something like that.

send your money to me, i'll invest it for you

I'm an associate at Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe.  I'll be glad to handle it for you.

I happen to work for ML, same as your dear old dad.  I'm not a broker though, I work in 'home office'.  So, if you want to give dad the business it would kinda be like giving it to a board member...

By the way, where is your dad located and what does he do?

If you had bought $1000.00 worth of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00.

With Enron, you would have $16.50 of the original $1000.00.

With Worldcom, you would have less than $5.00 left.

If you had bought $1000.00 worth of Budweiser (the beer, not the stock) one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the 10 cents deposit, you would have $214.00.

Based on the above, my current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

Given that Martha Steward's account rep at Merrill has been suspended.  I'm sure he's looking for new client to conduct inside trades :)

Why let some glorified salesman make money off of your money?  Ask yourself this question: When a broker gives you advice, do you really beleieve he or she has your best interest, or do you think they're more interested in your commission?

Even with professional research, 85-90% of brokers CAN NOT match the preformance of S&P 500 index. No one cares more about your $$ than yourself.  Save yourself some grief and pick up a book from "Suzie Orman".  She has great advice for handling your own finance.

For a "small" amount of money, you're on your own.   Brokers can't afford to work with "small" investors any longer.   Ask your dad,  He'll tell you that Merrill is in the process of not paying anything to brokers where the commission is under $500.  (That's the commission, not the amount you want to invest.)

If you want "stock" exposure but don't want to get too involved in picking stocks;  just buy an index.  The "standard" index is the S&P500.
You can buy it as a mutual fund through Vangard or as a stock, QQQQ;  or as iShares.

You can learn alot of the basics at Motley Fool.com.

Remember, to a broker a "small" account may be as much as $100,000.

If you really want to pay someone to help you try a discount brokerage at your local bank,  they may have smaller minimum account sizes.

Vanguard mutual funds are known for their low expense ratios - with long term investing, you'll end up with more money in your pocket.

Also, even with S&P500 index funds - down 21% year to date -, you want to protect yourself by diversifying, which means DON'T put all your eggs into any one basket.