sophie: Before Bogleheads, I started out with John Slatter's
100 Best Stocks for 2002 book (or whichever year) and stuck with that series for a while. I've always had about sixty individual stocks, but while the
100 Best series was quite diversified, I always ended up with too many consumer staples due to exposure/familiarity bias.
Since even Kennon is still pro-indexing, I like to think of my index funds as a completely balanced meal like an astronaut might take with him. As long as the index funds are what I continue to add to, I can keep my individual stocks, which are figuratively the burgers and doughnuts of my holdings (and which literally included McDonald's and Dunkin) and rationalize violating the rule about having too many strategies.
For the purposes of the pp, it's far easier to hold an index fund and just sell down a specific $ amount when it's time to rebalance.
lordmetroid: Shouldn't a Dow Jones Index fond be sufficient.
Different experts give different numbers. In 25 years, let us know how it works out.