Ariel Mutual Funds

To get the most out of your money, whether you are interested in mutual funds, stocks, ETFs or options, you need two main things - the knowledge and the right trading platform.

As for the trading platform, we can highly recommend you try Zecco and E*TRADE.
Zecco offers free stock/etf trading, no account minimum, trading community, real time quotes, and is also protected and insured against loss by SIPC. Opening a Zecco account to take advantage of $0 stock trades allows you to save money, which you can reinvest instead of paying brokerage commissions. These fees can make really big difference for long-term investing options like retirement plans (Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, Rollover IRA - 401k).
E*TRADE has been ranked #1 Online Broker for third consecutive year by SmartMoney magazine (written by the Wall Street Journal staff and owned by Dow Jones). It was ranked based on the categories: Mutual Funds & Investment Products, Research, Trading Tools, Banking Services and Customer Service. They have been around for 25 years, have $100 Billion in customer assets and 4.5 million accounts. Open an E*TRADE account here and get bonus 100 commission free trades.

For the knowledge part we always recommend subscribing to the The Wall Street Journal (and save over 75%).