The fact is, retail cannot compete risk-wise with institutions. Thanks to Quantitative Easing and low interest rates, money, by itself, has very little value. To make lending money "valuable", you have to leverage it at ratio that the average retail investor can't afford risk-wise. Only edge fund that can afford to risk it all can do that. More so, 2008 proven that the government was willing to bail out institutions, something not available to retail.