You'd have been SCREAMING stock market at him? It went down to... 7k?  So if he had invested in an index fund he'd have made 33%... another 8k? I don't think that qualifies as GRQ, but ok<p>Note: not saying it's a bad idea, but he's asking for something to quickly make a LOT more money. Your advice, while likely sound, isn't going to accomplish that, unless he can pick one of those lucky stocks (like Akamai was at one point) that goes up 33x in a year.<p>Second note: What he is asking for is a pipe dream. If it was that easy to turn 24k into millions, there'd be a hell of a lot more people doing it. 24k isn't really that much.