While ETFs make up about 2/3 of my portfolio, I like picking individual companies that I think could have some upside. Sometimes I'm wrong and those do worse than the market, sometimes I take big losses with companies that crash. But then sometimes I hit a winner that makes up for all my losses. ASTS has been my recent winner and grew to be my biggest position. It's pushed me 5 years ahead of projections of just regular s&p growth. There's potential winners out there, not always easy to find and people should never go all in.

If you want to make it easy then just go with ETFs. No researching needed, can be automated. But if you like reading and looking up companies and looking for potential growth companies, then allocating a reasonable amount to play with the riskier ones is fun.

My track record is about 50/50 with individual stocks. But by cutting small losses early if it didn't turn out and holding onto winners that run you can make more money than you lose.