If you buy good solid stock and the lot size is only 100, you can start with little money.
ejleemy,

You do not understand the basic of asset allocation model.  We are using an A/C in USA.  We are investing on asset, stock, bond all over the world.  It is NOT in USA ONLY.

Do you understand that in most cases, you can use asset classes to manage your risk?  For example, in recession when the USA stock market clashes, the bond market is doing very well.  By having investment in both, you diversified and cancel out each other.  Due to re-balancing, you always buy low and sell high.

For example, to protect against US currency devaluation, I invest on international stock index and international REAL ESTATE.  So, I diversified and manage the risk.  You can do this as an individual investor in USA easily.  I am my own fund manager.  I can hedge my risk.  This is call the science of investing.

Oops!! I made a mistake.  It should be you always lose money when you BUY HIGH and SELL LOW.

https://flagship.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/fun...&FundIntExt=INT

VSMGX

In USA, you can buy one fund that consist of 4 funds and they will do the re-balancing for you automatically.

Dreamer

We survived the 1997 crisis. Didn't we ? Again, please prove your statement... My view is opposite. As stated in my previous posts, if both USA and Msia were to go thru recession, USA will be the one trouble recovering given my rough analysis on current and future of USA economy.