By Jim Cramer
Publication Date: 2026-09-27 23:20:00
Sometimes you read an article about stocks, and you just want to scream. When I was in Italy this past week for vacation, I read a piece that was pushed to me about individual stock investing — and, as usual, it trashed you, the retail investor; it “defrocked” me by noting that individuals are buying stocks in record numbers, up to 20% from 10% of all volume in the last couple of decades. Notice the word “buying.” It’s pointed; it says you “buy,” not invest, because “buying” is meant to disparage you. A professional, or even better, an S & P 500 buyer, is an informed investor. A person who owns just a handful of stocks, even picked side by side with an index investor, is a speculator — and a speculator, per se, is a first-class idiot Where does this stem from? First and foremost, Warren Buffett , who, while obviously the best investor of our lifetime, remains a conundrum, because an individual investor would have far outperformed an S & P 500 fund by buying Berkshire Hathaway ‘s…