The wealthiest investors can afford to take big gambles, but for most people, steady, long-term growth in passive investments makes more sense.
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When you want to learn how to do something well, your first instinct is often to turn to the folks who have achieved the most success doing that thing. Watch a documentary about Michael Jordan. Read a book about writing by Stephen King. Follow Gary Vee on TikTok.
Studying the greats might give you a much-needed dose of inspiration, but looking to them for tactical tips is rarely the winning strategy you're hoping for.
Why? Because you're not them.
The same is true for investing. Investment apps like Echo Trade and Autopilot make it easy for everyday investors to mimic the activity of wealthy investors and professional portfolio managers, while apps like Robinhood and Webull claim to "democratize" investing by letting anyone trade like the rich, regardless of their resources.
After all, if you want to become rich, why not mimic the activities of those who've made it? Well … because you're not them.
As a financial educator, I'm highly suspect of most investment apps. The prospect of tearing down the walls and letting us all into the world that was once reserved for the rich sounds appealing. But it ignores some glaring realities.
Though it's common in the US to rely on the stock market for long-term savings and look to its performance as a marker of our overall economic health, the market is hardly for everyone.
The wealthiest 10% of US households own nearly 67% of the wealth in our stock market, according to data from the Federal Reserve. We might have seemingly equal access to the market, but only a few people hoard the real benefits from it.
That's because they have the most to put into it in the first place.
Just like gambling, the biggest gains in investing come from the biggest risks — but so do the biggest losses. The people who win by taking those risks are the people who could afford the loss in the first place. You shouldn't mimic their activity unless you're equally comfortable losing everything you invest.
I put investors into two buckets: traders and savers. There are tons of nuances in the ways people invest, but the simplest difference between these two is that traders invest to become richer, and savers invest for long-term financial security.
Most people are savers. That's you if you're saving for retirement through a 401(k) or IRA, for example. Even most people saving aggressively toward early retirement or financial independence are savers.
Most investment apps are designed to make users act like traders: They encourage you to pick individual stocks, trade them frequently and keep a close eye on their performance.
Rich investors with money to lose might enjoy the thrill of this game, but any credible financial advisor will tell you this is not the safest or even most lucrative way to save for your future — especially if you have next to no knowledge about business or financial markets.
Even if you had the comprehensive financial knowledge of a professional trader, odds are that active trading isn't your best bet.
Actively managed investment funds regularly fail to beat the market. And those are managed by professional, full-time stock brokers.
An index fund that passively follows the activity of a stock index like the S&P 500 has a better chance of yielding positive returns. As a bonus, they also come with lower fees.
Unless you're investing for the thrill of big wins and losses, stop seeking get-rich investment strategies from people who were already rich.
Remember, your investments are not a game; they're your savings. If you're going to put them in the market, find safe, stable funds for your life savings so they're likely to be there when you need them.
