equalizer, one thing I noticed and use now that is not available even 5 years ago (I don’t think) is 2X index fund. They have 2X funds for both bull and bear side of many different indexes. Here are a few example: DXZLX, DXCLX, UUPIX, etc. These are bull 2X index fund of Latin America, Commodity, emerging market. It might be hard to pick that perfect stock, but I think it’s a little easier to pick a sector. With the 2X part, if the index it ties to goes up, your mutual funds will go up 2X as much but will go down 2X as much as well. They are tied to indexes, so you’re not putting faith in a particular fund manager but more of faith in particular index/economy/sector. I let the pro deal with the details of options and such to get me 2X the index return.
Another basic fundamental difference between now vs 20 years ago is the internet. Back then, there are no discount brokerage. There are no Yahoo, Google, etc for us small investor to do our own research. Your only real choice is go to places like Fidelity and tell those people to invest your money. So yeah, I do think if you have capital, now is better than 20 years ago in term of small fish investor.
