[RWebb]

a mutual fund will indeed 'spread the risk,' but over scores of individual stocks - often hundreds

some funds track major indices or attempt to track the entire market; sector funds attempt to track entire sectors - and Fidelity has some good ones

none of the above has anything to do really with market timing, which any professor of finance that studies the concept will tell you is a bad idea

Vanguard has even lower expenses than Fidelity and has numerous good funds, HealthCare is one that has a superb record and will likely do well this year

search up the numerous threads already on here for more - use the terms Fidelity & Vanguard

It is early in the year, but nonetheless, I am able to make one prediction for 2014 with a high degree of confidence: One-half of all stocks will do worse than the market overall.