>>Don’t buy individual stocks (unless you really know what you’re doing—and very few people actually do).<<
THE best advice ever given on this or any other board. If you want to buy individual stocks, just go to Vegas or Atlantic City or the nearest Indian Casino and drop your $ on Black 17 — your odds are better in those places.
I know for a fact I’m not smart enough to know which is the best stock to buy at the best time at the best price and then again to sell it at exactly the best time or the best price.
Since I am not that smart, I am not dumb enough to buy individual stocks.