Do not invest with the herd

Buying indexes is a poor plan. There is risk but little reward. A person never can make 10 times their money. The common idea is that if you make 6% you have had a great year. Real inflation (not the silly core rate that does not include things that rise, that people actually need) rises faster than that. Best to pay for quality research and attempt to invest in things that have the potential for exponential growth. Avoid indexes and mutual funds.
If you hear of your investment on Television all the time the likelihood of you making a fortune is low. If no one has heard of your investment area it has real potential. If you went into the Uranium sector in 1999 to invest because you had the vision to understand that energy was in serious decline for the long term and that radioactive investments were obviously good bets as electrical generation is not negotiable.
Do you think that IBM is going to 20,000 dollars a share? It has a better chance of making it to 20 dollars a share. Microsoft to the moon?
What are they going to do, sell Windows to the Martians and moon people? Some day Microsoft will not exist. On the way to that painful point many people will lose a lot of money being exposed to not a lot of gain. Let the institutions buy IBM and Microsoft. They want to earn 30% over 100 years. You had better try to make the money in your lifetime instead.