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Absolutely! Whenever you see any powerful solid stock at a 5 yr low it is a great time to invest if you can afford to invest for at least 5 years. The market on average returns about 8-12% for long term, 5-40 year investments, depending on how you invest.

The best investors know that the best time to buy is when the public is in fear of recession. The problem is, most people have less money to invest during recessions and they are afraid of losing it.

Apart from individual stocks being at an all time low, the overall market is at a 5 year low, a great time to invest.

As I stated before, if you need the money for Christmas shopping, its not a good time to buy, but if you need the money for retirement in 40 years (hopefully you’re starting early). Than now is an absolutely perfect time to invest.

Another thing, If this is a retirement account that you are setting up you will want to look into whether you should open an IRA or a Roth IRA. I wont get into the difference here but I am 20 years old and have an $8000 net investment (currently worth 5.5K due to the slumping economy) in a Roth IRA. I use vanguard.com but there are many sites to open up these accounts. I plan on investing again another 4000 into the total market this year.

Don’t open up an E*trade account these are meant more for people who day trade or buy stocks individually something that you wont want to do.

As far as a personal tip. At this point in your investing career you want to probably open up a mutual fund type account (minimums range from 1000-3000) and put the total amount in a Total stock market index. This is your safest stock investment. It means you are buying a part of every single company that is publicly traded (in the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones depending). To check whether you lost or made money on any given day you can check to see if the overall market went up or down. Generally this type of investment will earn you 8% a year, CDs and money markets earn about 4.5%, and savings accounts earn much less. Some hedge funds will promise you returns of 12-15% but I warn you that for everyone of those who succeeds, one fails. Its better to get a return of 8-9% buying the entire market, then risk getting 3-4% for the same risk.

Kindof rambled I give myself a B- in knowlege of Finance, but if there is one thing I am 100% certain on it is that it is a great time to invest. The S&P index may drop to 700 but in 5 years I can at least guarentee you that it will be higher then when you bought it at 980 (if you bought it today). And hopefully it will be worth quite a bit more. My money is on 1500.