Roth IRA question

[Will]

Is there a penalty for pulling money from a stock or fund before 5 years or does that only apply if you pull money from the account?

[pmb1010]

What do you mean by "pulling from a stock or fund"?

You can buy/sell all the stuff you want with your contribuitons or earnings anytime you want, within the account.

You can't pull contributions out of the account for 5 years, or until 59.5 without penalty. Hardships are the exception to the rule.

[TripleBuy]

Check out this reference guild for Roth IRAs.

http://www.fool.com/money/allaboutiras/allaboutiras09.htm

If you have a roth, you can take out the contribution money anytime, without penalty since that money is after-tax $$$.

If you are removing gains or interest earned on the contribution money, other rules apply.

see rule #6 in the link for an example of what I describe above.

[pmb1010]

I guess I stand corrected on the 5 yr rule.

I tried to move my contribution money back out of my roth (just to see if I could) and it griped about tax implications...

Guess I'd need to call Fidelity to ask them to make sure.

What's good about that? If you have money in ING, you pay tax on the interest on Apr 15th of every year. If you put it in a Roth IRA, the interest is NOT taxed and you can take the original contribuiton out anytime. Just leave it in the money fund in the Roth IRA and the interest is tax free.

EDIT - I called Fideltiy - yes you can take the CONTRIBUTIONS out without any penalty or interest... and the rep had to look it up, too.

[Will]

thanks guys for all your help.