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I don't mean to lecture or suggest your decision is unsound, but note that the expected opportunity cost of investing in any given stock vs. an index ETF over 9 years is about an 85% return.

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How is this calculated? Simply by taking the average of every stock you could possibly invest in? On NASDAQ + NYSE?

most individual stocks lag the index . the odds of choosing a stock that beats or meets the index are low.

Basically the median stock is worse than the index. Diversification is good.

why did you pick 9 years? When you use an arbitrary number like that, it looks like cherry picking.

The OP mentioned 9 years.

imho was still a fair question, no need to downvote. Not arguing with the index argument, but I've had finance "experts" trying to pull similar tricks on me by using weird years, etc.

There's a big difference between "these specific 9 years" and "the average 9 year span". It's a lot harder to make cherry picking arguments with the latter.

Flip the bozo bit xor conman bit on anyone using the former.

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