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If there is one thing I've learned in my studies and life experience (I'm a chartered financial analyst now), it's that unless you want to have a little fun and gamble with your money a little bit, it just doesn't pay to buy individual stocks. Over time, a huge percentage, like over 90%, of returns come not from stock selection, but from asset allocation. For example, how much you allocate to large cap stocks, small cap stocks, bonds, commodities, etc. makes a ton more difference than what stocks you pick.
Another interesting stat is that a large percentage of mutual funds that are not index funds underperform the index they are benchmarked to (S&P 500, Russell 2000, FTSE, etc.) over the long term. Some may outperform over short periods, but if you are keeping money in for the long-term, your better bet is Index funds a lot of the time.
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