As a special feature for April, TheStreet.com is offering a seven-part series on maximizing your IRA. This installment is Part 6. Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 7.
For most people, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds are probably the best options for IRAs. However, I must admit it is a bit discouraging to embrace a strategy that simply performs in line with the overall market. Sure, a stock portfolio invested in an index fund will participate fully in the growth of the economy over time. But it seems positively un-American to accept mediocrity in investment results. Isn't there a way to obtain better-than-average results given the amount of risk taken? And can't those good results be achieved without spending an inordinate amount of time working on investments? I personally think it is possible by doing three things:- Commit to being an unemotional and independent investor.
- Concentrate your search for investment ideas to a universe of smaller, less widely followed companies.
- Be a mechanical investor.



