Some good points there, but I will say one thing, and its not even original, I'm going to paraphrase Warren Buffett: Its really easy to win the game when the o

Some good points there, but I will say one thing, and its not even original, I'm going to paraphrase Warren Buffett: Its really easy to win the game when the other players don't show up. Put another way, it is easy to make a killing in stocks when most of the world thinks that putting their money into mutual funds is a good investment (or even index funds. When a company gets added to the S&P 500, all those funds have to buy it, and the sharks run up the price just before they do so you get to buy it at a premium.) I'm no genius, and I never spent a lot of time on investing, other than reading some good books....and %20 a year, consistently, year in and year out, is really not that hard to do. I think anyone can do it, if they are disciplined enough to be rational. Its the constant string of bad information from politicians and the media that gives people doubt and causes them to react irrationally when the market "doesn't seem to be going their way." or to irrationally get into the flavor of the day. I'm a longtime fan of apple, but I've never once owned their stock. I saw them at $13 and they had $6.50 in the bank, and I said "damn, that's a screaming buy" and I didn't buy, because they don't fit my discipline. Yeah, that's the one that got away, but I take a lot of comfort from the fact that I made the right choice. Being a good investor is understanding that missing out on a 40 bagger is sometimes the right choice.