Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

What percentage of my portfolio should be in individual stocks?
I find the question interesting, but it's beyond an intelligent answer.  Say what you will about Jim Cramer, his advice to spend "an hour per month on each stock" you own appears good to me. But it also limits the number of stocks you can own. Given that most of us have day jobs in other fields, you need to decide how much time and education you can put in. That said, there's a certain pleasure in picking stocks, buying a company that's out of favor, but your instinct tells you otherwise. For us, individual stocks are about 10% of total portfolio. The rest is indexed. The amount that "should be" in individual stocks? None. One can invest in low cost funds, never own shares of individual stocks, and do quite well.