The following points shows some advantages of trading stocks instead of investing in mutual funds:

1. When trading stocks, if trouble is detected in a particlar stock or in the market you are trading in, you either take your profits and get out, or short sell. On the other hand, Mutual Funds cannot exit the market quickly since they own huge amounts of shares, and unloading them to the stock market can be disastrous. Consequently, unlike individual stock investors they either have to stick to their positions in downtrends or suffer a huge loss in market trend changes upon exiting.

2. By law, Mutual Funds can not short sell more than a certain percentage of their assets, whereas you can short sell stocks in bear markets and grow rich in a faster pace, while big institutions are still unloading their stocks to the market.