Retail investors are finally getting aboard the stock market bandwagon after a seven-year hiatus.

Many investors were scared off by equities' plunge in 2008, when the Standard & Poor's 500 Index plummeted 37 percent.

But now that stocks are up at record highs and the economy is sustaining its recovery from the Great Recession, individual investors are showing interest again, The Wall Street Journal reports.

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"I'm hanging on every piece of good news, saying we're out of the slump," Vito Mandato, a 65-year-old Los Angeles real estate appraiser, tells the paper. "I still think there's huge upside in the stock market. I don't want to miss out."

He has increased his stock holdings over the past few months.

Investors have put $76 billion into U.S. stock mutual funds this year, more than in any year since 2004, according to Lipper. From 2006 through 2012, investors pulled out $451 billion.

"Frankly, from 2009 until recently, I wanted to stay very conservative," Chris Rouk, a technology sales manager in Irvine, Calif., tells The Journal. Now, "I want to get more aggressive."

The Federal Reserve's policy approach may determine the market's direction in coming weeks, experts say.

"People will be watching over the next few weeks to see if the Fed does decide to begin tapering this year," John Carey, a portfolio manager at Pioneer Investment Management, tells Bloomberg. "If earnings continue trending higher the support will be there for better share prices."

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