[Nick 95 6sp]

I never made the time or had interest to follow individual stocks personally, and I didn't want to put my trust into a broker...though there are some good ones worthy of trust and your money, and I figured if you don't devote substantial time and learning to it yourself you won't make out/you'll loose money or not make as much as "other investment options". So since I wasn't banking on making a big fast hit, I've always looked "long term" to have money for retirement; so I put my money into diversified mutal funds with relatively low fund costs. I like Vangaurd for my personal investments, but there are plenty of others around; and thru work our company has a 401k investment managment company that uses a wide mix of other funds, and I put an amount into these funds that matches the maximum amount the company will match against my investment dollar for dollar.

Based on all the historic data I've seen, unless you go the "day trader" route and play real smart and way above average with individual stocks, or find a broker you trust and who will actually work for you and not himself, I find that over the 10+ year window most people can't beat a good market index fund, since by definition it tracks a certain market index, like general top 500 stocks, or top 20 energy sector stocks, or some emerging market mix, etc. When I was younger, I always went with the more aggressive stock funds; now that I'm getting closer to retirement I'm getting a little less aggressive. Having watched many friends and others play and loose over the last 30+ years, I like the "slow but steady" growth path that has less risk but decent growth.