      The question you are probably asking now is, "If this is tme, then howcan retail investors ever profit from the stock market?" The answer isthat, over time, the stock market has an upward bias. The odds are in favorof making money; how much money one makes is the variable. If your averageinvestor were to buy an S&P 500 index fund, he or she would make an annualreturn of"X" percent. Had an investor bought the S&P 500 index in 1995, heor she would be roughly twice as rich three years later, based on acompounded rate of return.