I know very little about the stock market or investing. My knowledge about economics in the "big" world of investing is less than elementary. Most of the terminology out there is gibberish at best to me. I've been reading several books and information about investing and am wondering about a few things. It seems that investing in the stock market only offers great potential to investors who have a lot of money to invest. Like if a company is selling at say $10 a share and in the next year increases to $20 a share. Obviously the person who invested $1000 didn't nearly make the money that someone who invested $1 billion did. Which begs the obvious question? What real value does stock investing hold for the small time investor, since the risks seems to far outweigh potential gains? Does the money you have invested in stock only increase with an increase in price or is there any compounded gain over time like a CD or 401k? It seems that small investors would make better use of their time, energy, and money in investing in something that offers compounded gains over time rather than trying to turn a profit with such high risk attached to it. Enlighten me as to what the best course of action is.