Best and safest way to invest 20k

Good luck finding a mutual fund that earns 15-20% over a period greater than one year. 6-10% is more realistic over the long haul.

How soon will you need to spend this money? If it's 5+ years index funds/ETFs are fine (avoid individual stocks). If it's less than that you need to stick to money market, savings, etc. Interest rates suck right now but should improve within a year. Don't get locked into a sucky interest rate with a CD.

Leave it in a savings account or short-term CD until you learn some investing basics and/or consult an expert you trust. It's apparent from your post that you're not prepared to make an informed decision, regardless of what advice you may get here or anywhere else. $20,000 is a lot of money to piss away.

Sign up for an etrade account and start daytrading. j/k. I echo cotton's comment.

I'll PM you my paypal address

Not one of the investments you listed would be considered "safe" in any reasonable context. Maybe as opposed to dropping it on black at the casino, but that's about it. You can lose up to 100% of your investment in any of the investments you mentioned. Penny stocks are the worst. Investing 100% of your money in a distressed company in a distressed industry (Ford) is not much better. Mutual funds are the safest of the ones you mentioned (that's not saying much) but any mutual fund with a history of returning 15-20% will be in a higher risk, more volatile sector that as likely as not will lose that much (or more) in any given year. You need professional help. Find a fee based financial planner (fee based is key) to help you decide on a plan. If you don't have a 3-6 month cash reserve, then this money should go into a CD ladder for a rainy day. After that you can start thinking about investing in equities or bonds. A good financial planner can help you assess your risk tolerance. Think about this: If you got your brokerage statement and this money had gone from $20,000 to $10,000, how would you feel? If you said anything but "calm" then the investments you listed are probably wrong for you. If you said that you'd want to vomit, then you need a much safer investment. Scared money makes bad decisions. Don't do anything until you have a well-thought out plan. JMHO.

QUESTION NUMBER 1

For how long do you plan to invest it?

QUESTION NUMBER 2

How much risk are you willing to take, e.g. how much (if any) of your principal are you willing to lose?

This. If you don't have a cash reserve, that's what you should do with a chunk of the money.

give it to me. I will kop RO jackets and TB cashmere. Will undoubtedly go up in value. I'll PM you my paypal. Oh yah, make sure it's marked personal payment too; I don't want any pesky paypal fees!

it is funny because 10 years ago, the advice that ford or GM were safe companies would have been accepted reasonably well...if you had listened to the advice then and stuck all your eggs in one basket

well lets just say one of those baskets looks really shitty and the other one fell apart.

open a roth IRA (assuming you have already paid out taxes on this 20k) as I would hope your future tax bracket is higher than when you are 22. Put a big chunk of it in VFINX or something similar and leave yourself a few k to play with (within the confines of a Roth) if you feel the need to buy a few shares of google or something.

Time is on your side...by the time you retire, 20k in an s&p 500 index fund with very low fees (like VFINX...fidelity probably has one too) will have turned into a giant pile of money and withdrawals are TAX FREE.

Spend it at thrift stores and outlets and then flip the clothes on eBay and the B&S forum.