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    Some breath-taking highs, plenty of desperate lows and a whole lot of nail-biting in-between. That, as you've probably rightly guessed, is how most of us feel about the stock markets, the performance of shares and the funds that invest in them.

    To be fair, our visceral reaction is inevitable. When the FTSE-100 index plunges, screeching headlines are quick to tell us that "billions" have been wiped from our balances. And if the markets begin to surge when riding either a buoyant economy or burgeoning trend, such as the explosion in dot.com companies in the late 1990s, it's no wonder that our excitement mounts at dreams of untold wealth.

    Between all this dazzle and despair, there doesn't appear to be much room for us to think of stock markets in any other way. In the past experts have shown how ordinary investors underestimate the FTSE-100 index as a performing asset in a portfolio, often ranking gilts and even cash higher.
    Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of us used to plump for good old-fashioned bricks and mortar - residential property - as our best guess to where the greatest growth lies. However with property prices taking a nosedive in recent years, people might be casting a fresh eye over what the stock market has to offer.

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