The "Day Trading" Hangover For many Gen Z investors, the stock market journey started with the meme stock craze. It was exciting, until it wasn't. The reality set in: picking individual winners is exhausting, stressful, and statistically likely to underperform the market over time. The alternative? Boring Mutual Funds or ETFs. But in 2025, sophisticated young investors are rejecting these too. Why pay an expense ratio (management fee) to own a bundle of 500 companies when you hate 50 of them? The solution taking over Wall Street is called "Direct Indexing." It used to be a strategy reserved for the ultra-wealthy (think $10 million portfolios), but technology has democratized it for everyone.