In this country, saving AND investing lead to wealth building. Just saving and earning money market or CD interest is not enough. Social security benefit may not be at your old age. Also, companies are curtailing retirement benefits. So, save and invest for your future. Got badly burned and lerned some lessons when the stock market bubble popped. Lost tons of money when then because I was heavy on tech stocks. Luckily, pulled out before being dhoti-na-topi. Good news is I can deduct 3K annual loss for a very long time. Buying a business with the pulled out money has been good though. Anyway, you have to be very smart and really really lucky to beat the market consistently. Market timing takes too much of your time and doesn't work in the long-run. You lose a lot in transaction cost and added capital gains tax. Invest in stock if you are very good at it and very lucky most of the time. Mutual funds are better in terms of spreading the risk but less flexible. You have to hold for certain time to avoid large transaction fee and they are less flexible. Transactions are credited at the close of the day. Recently I am drawn to ETFs. They are traded like stocks but act like mutual funds. Fees are quite low too. Some of my broad international funds and S. Korea funds are doing very good. My recommendation is to give heavier weight on ETFs. Invest for the long run. Pick good stocks or ETFs and see your money grow. Good luck.