The Individual Investor
Some of you may think that it would be impossible to beat the pros but I think you are wrong. It's actually very easy. Remember you can do things they can't. You can buy stocks that are thinly traded and the size of your transactions almost always mean an instant execution in one lot.
You do not have to worry about compliance. You can over-weight a stock in you own portfolio and if you want to sit in cash, who cares. The only person you need to satisfy is yourself and maybe your margin clerk.
Gauge yourself not against the others but against a broad index like the S&P 500 or the Value Line index.
Over time if you invested in just the S&P 500 or a Value Line index fund you would beat most of the professional money managers and be way ahead of the effects of taxes and inflation. What you are looking to do is decide if your own judgement adds value to your portfolio performance.
If you find it doesn't then spend your time evaluating fund managers instead of evaluating individual stocks. Use a free portfolio simulation game like Marketocracy to test your hunches. Write questions in the forums and I've found you'll get open and honest answers from the other players.
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