at 17 you can afford to lose some $$$ (and expect to gain a lot of $) so i recommend looking into small cap tech stocks (VTSS, CIEN, JDSU, CNXT...) if you have the time to follow the market and are willing to make trades frequently. they had a slight rally earlier this month, and have since hit a wall. but the outlook does seem optimistic!

but if you have time, a well-balanced/diversified portfolio is the way to go. but you gotta be aggressive if u wanna get real returns. btw, howd you decide upon those stocks? were they gifts, and how large is the interest you hold.

disclaimer--as of this moment i hold vtss, akam, ebay, coh :dunno: