if doing active dividend stock picking you have to add the time / effort of researching the best long-term companies, understanding the business, reading the reports, etc.
that time could also be used to generate additional income into an index fund. So what kind of alpha are you generating above a set it and forget it index fund strategy ?
if you are just starting out generating extra income might give you better long term returns than research on stocks for a small portfolio.
For many people not much. I certainly don't suggest people pick individual stocks unless they want to and express an interest in it, like the OP. When I hit the million mark, I realized that trying to get an extra 1% from reducing cost, improving return, was a far more valuable use of say 5 hours a week than putting in the extra hour a night at the office. In the hopes of getting a superior review and getting a 6% vs 4% raise.
This isn't the case if you have $50,000 in assets. However, evaluating individual companies, gives you a pretty good insight into how the market works in general. I found that in 2008 that individual stock pickers were far less likely to want to sell at the bottom, because having been evaluating stocks for years they had an appreciation for the terrific values that were available in Q4/08 and Q1/09.
