Stock Picking Vs ETF

Fascinated by the phenomenal returns that one can get, if lucky, gets a person hooked to stock picking pretty easily. I have found that with the first 10 stocks I picked, I was lucky in at least 3 that it generated more than 3 times the money I invested in all the stocks combined. Remember I used the word "lucky". That is important because it was a chance game 50:50. The story is more stoic with my next 10 stocks I picked. All of them lost as much as 80%, thanks to the Great Recession of 2008-9. More than half of my stock worth is still in the negative 70% territory inspite of the big uptick in the market. Why? I don't know really.

My conclusion is that these were essentially high return stocks and had a high risk built in, not inherently but rather systemically. What I mean by that is, should any systemic risk arise (which happens once in 70 years, mind you!!) the unexpected could unravel and it sure did in my case, to my misfortune. I got all these experiences in about 6 years of my dabbling in stock market. A quick lesson for me but a deeply denting lesson.

So the question for me is, is ETF better? Yes, but I think not entirely. 60% in ETF and 40% stocks may be an intelligent mix. I am still trying to figure this one out.

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