Tisa, I think this thread is more appropriate for discussion of investing (in stocks) rather than financial planning or retirement. By the way of your interpretation of the market I can see you are a novice hukka; be extremely cautious though that you may not want to throw away your hard earned dollars. Stock picking is something you don't want to do- individual investors just don't have the tools, expertise, experience, professionalism, etc. that professional money managers and traders have. When I interned at Susquehanna (market maker- http://www.susq.com/) many years ago working on their trading system you would be surprised what they have at their disposal and what you are up against, mainly a very sophisticated trading and analysis systems. And there is no way you can compete! Let's say you buy into a stock- you may say, well I am for the long haul and the company looks healthy, etc. but what do u do when they have one bad quarter or a scandal breaks out? Do you hold, sell, or buy more? These decisions are better if left to professional firms like Susquehanna or money managers at JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, etc. I hope that makes sense to you. Investing is like raising a kid; you can't be sure what troubles the kid may get into if you leave him/her alone. I am sure many of you have jobs and can't devote your full time to investing- therefore, it'd be better to let someone else (the ones mentioned in my post above) who DOES devote his/her full time to watch over your investments. Only cost to you is a small fee, which is obiviously close to nil when you think about how pooled investments like a fund works (same way venture capitalists pool money before investing in a startup). I hope this helps! -SOAP