You'll want mutual funds, not individual stocks. The Asian market is performing phenomenally, particularly China & S Korea (steer away from Japan). I had a Korean mutual that earned almost 26% the first quarter of '06. Pay close attention to "Emerging Market" & "International market" mutuals--recently they've been averaging a 10-14% annual return for most (some as high as 40+%!), while the rule of thumb for a "good average" investment is only 8%. You can acquire some very good ones, via Fidelity; call them and get them to send you some prospectuses. You can check out Vanguard, Puritan, etc. Try to keep them spread out between a blend of Small, Mid-cap & Large growth funds (both Domestic & International) don't sink it all into one, regardless of how good the predicted rate of return is--high risk usually doesn't pay off. From personal experience I'll say Fidelity's "in-house" mutuals are also extremely well put together. It's who I use for the majority of my portfolio's holdings. Check out a few:
http://personal.fidelity.com/products/fund...erly.shtml.cvsr
Edit: (on the left, click "Browse Fidelity Mutual Funds", then click "Internation/Global"--some of them are doing better than expected a year ago--fantastic rate of return on most of those! )
Also, if your work offers a 401K by all means, take it (how can you beat matching funds?--it's free $$$!); if they don't, try a Roth IRA. Don't let anyone talk you into buying CDs or bonds; it's [censored], as far as smart planning goes--this is not the proper market for it. Plus their rate of return is so low, you could earn just as much interest in an ING savings account, and still be able to touch your money without penalty, so there's no point in buying them. And don't get concerned about liquidity--think only in the long-term. True, healthy & intelligent investing is nothing more than a waiting game; start off easy and just build on your investments via a little homework & a bit of (but not too risky) experimentation.
Annuities are also good too; go with a variable rate annuity over a fixed one at this point--the way things are going, it'll probably pay off better in the long run.
Hope that helped.