The Big Secret for the Small Investor : John Wiley & Sons, Inc. : 9781119979609 : 1119979609 : 12 Apr 2011 : When it comes to investing in the stock market, investors have plenty of options: 1. They can do it themselves. Trillions of dollars are invested this way. (Of course, the only problem here is that most people have no idea how to analyze and choose individual stocks. Well, not really the only problem. Most investors have no idea how to construct a stock portfolio, most have no idea when to buy and sell, and most have no idea how much to invest in the fi rst place.) 2. They can give money to professionals to invest. Trillions of dollars are invested this way. (Unfortunately, most professionals actually underperform the market averages over time. In fact, it may be even harder to pick good professional managers than it is to pick good individual stocks.) 3. They can invest in traditional index funds. Trillions of dollars are also invested this way. (The problem is that investi