[throwaway55523]

Buy and hold indexes. That's the smart approach.

The only alternative that makes sense to me is to follow Peter Lynch's advice and buy what you know. Do this with money you can afford to lose.

When Apple released the original iPod I begged my Dad to buy me one and raved about it. Based on my excitement, he bought several thousand shares of aapl and still holds them. The gain on that single investment is greater than all the income he earned in his lifetime. You cannot expect to make these kinds of investments. Take a sliver of what you have and put it behind something you believe in. Put the rest in index funds.

Edit: I meant to tie this comment back to the original title about wealth disparity. Point being, my Dad has created generational wealth from a single lucky investment. It's just luck and a system that let's you keep your winnings.

[WalterBright]

I know a couple that invested the bulk of their net worth into Apple when Jobs returned. They advised me to, too. I didn't <sob>.

[umanwizard]

If it makes you feel any better, I heard about Bitcoin when it was under $1, thought it was a cool idea, didn't have any disposable money to buy any, and promptly forgot about it.

[ScottBurson]

If it makes you feel any better, I heard about Bitcoin before you could even buy it, and I had a fairly powerful (for the time) quad-core machine I could have done a bunch of mining with.

[umanwizard]

If it makes you feel any better, there's a good chance you'd have mined thousands of bitcoins, gotten bored and forgotten about them, and lost the wallet file eventually :)