HB, Blue chips had a wonderful year. The Dow beat the S&P mainly due to Boeing's 90% rise. But BA is expensive by all traditional measures. I also own MMM and TRV which are in the Dow. I've been reading articles forever about how overpriced MMM is, then it rose another 40% last year! Buffett owns something like 11 of the Dow 30 stocks.
All of my other stocks are in the S&P 500. I think only Walgreens was down in 2017 but not much by Pennyland standards LOLOL!
All of my stocks pay dividends which gives me staying power in shaky markets. I've benefited from a ton of dividend increases in the past few years. But I absolutely despise gimmicky high dividend stocks and own none of them! Double-digit-paying "alphabet stocks" such as mREITS, BDCs, MLPs, can be as scammy as pennies. The real risk comes in tough times when most such kludges vaporize.
Generally it's not smart to focus on individual stocks. Understand that 95% of listed stocks underperform ultra-safe Treasury Bills. Unless you hit the rare winners you'll lag. With index funds you can be assured of owning the proverbial "Next Microsoft." Read this famous paper: https://wpcarey.asu.edu/sites/default/files/bessembinder-stock-performance-2017.pdf
And tape this chart to your computer monitor. The "You Suck" part has to do with buying at peaks and selling at bottoms and chasing fads which we're all wired to do.
Especially note how much farther to "the good side" Index Funds are.
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