[pendenthistory]

Unfortunately a lesson I had to learn for myself. Hopefully I can pass it on to the next generation, but I fear they'll have to learn it for themselves too. Don't pick individual stocks people, buy broad index funds at most.

[Esophagus4]

I would have said this, but someone responded with a comment that stuck with me:

We’re on a forum of an incubator whose goal is investing in high risk startups to find the next unicorn. So there are probably people here who feel the same way about investing.

While the average outcome of indexes is probably better, the best case outcome of an individual stock is probably better.

It’s lower likelihood and not as repeatable, but for some people, that’s the strategy they want.

[throw0101d]

> While the average outcome of indexes is probably better, the best case outcome of an individual stock is probably better.

Most stocks suck:

> We study long-run shareholder outcomes for over 64,000 global common stocks during the January 1990 to December 2020 period. We document that the majority, 55.2% of U.S. stocks and 57.4% of non-U.S. stocks, underperform one-month U.S. Treasury bills in terms of compound returns over the full sample. Focusing on aggregate shareholder outcomes, we find that the top-performing 2.4% of firms account for all of the $US 75.7 trillion in net global stock market wealth creation from 1990 to December 2020. Outside the US, 1.41% of firms account for the $US 30.7 trillion in net wealth creation.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3710251

> Four out of every seven common stocks that have appeared in the CRSP database since 1926 have lifetime buy-and-hold returns less than one-month Treasuries. When stated in terms of lifetime dollar wealth creation, the best-performing four percent of listed companies explain the net gain for the entire U.S. stock market since 1926, as other stocks collectively matched Treasury bills. These results highlight the important role of positive skewness in the distribution of individual stock returns, attributable both to skewness in monthly returns and to the effects of compounding. The results help to explain why poorly-diversified active strategies most often underperform market averages.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2900447

And it's not always the same 2-4% of stocks: a stock may shoot up in value, and if you're holding it at that time to can capture that, but once it has already gone up it may perform average-to-poor going forward. At that point, if you're still holding on it, it will be a drag on your (average) returns.

[Esophagus4]

I don’t disagree at all (I have no individual stocks, only indexes). The average retail investor doesn’t beat the market.

However, the top 10% of retail traders actually can generate consistent returns.[1]

Consider that MSFT has gone up 10x over the last ten years while the S&P has risen 4x. Ethereum has risen 2500x in that period. TSLA has risen 270x.

Not saying these returns are typical, but I can imagine that a highly aggressive retail investor could, with a few good trades and a lot of confidence, do incredibly well and end up with a life-altering amount of money. Obviously, the chances of both entering AND exiting the trades to capture all of that is low.

Again, not my style, but I respect those who want to place their bets.

[1] https://www.bus.umich.edu/pdf/mitsui/nttdocs/coval-shumway2....

[throw0101d]

> Not saying these returns are typical, but I can imagine that a highly aggressive retail investor could, with a few good trades and a lot of confidence, do incredibly well and end up with a life-altering amount of money. Obviously, the chances of both entering AND exiting the trades to capture all of that is low.

The problem is the existential question of knowing whether you are good (in absolute and relative terms) or not:

> For example, any competent basketball coach could tell you whether someone was skilled at shooting within the course of 10 minutes. Yes, it’s possible to get lucky and make a bunch of shots early on, but eventually they will trend toward their actual shooting percentage. The same is true in a technical field like computer programming. Within a short period of time, a good programmer would be able to tell if someone doesn’t know what they are talking about.

> But, what about stock picking? How long would it take to determine if someone is a good stock picker?

> An hour? A week? A year?

> Try multiple years, and even then you still may not know for sure. The issue is that causality is harder to determine with stock picking than with other domains. When you shoot a basketball or write a computer program, the result comes immediately after the action. The ball goes in the hoop or it doesn’t. The program runs correctly or it doesn’t. But, with stock picking, you make a decision now and have to wait for it to pay off. The feedback loop can take years.

> And the payoff you do eventually get has to be compared to the payoff of buying an index fund like the S&P 500. So, even if you make money on absolute terms, you can still lose money on relative terms.

* https://ofdollarsanddata.com/why-you-shouldnt-pick-individua...

[HFguy]

Weird you are getting down voted. And you provided sources for your assertions.

[throw0101d]

> And you provided sources for your assertions.

Feelings don't care about facts. — not Ben Shapiro

[YZF]

And certainly don't buy individual stocks because of FOMO or day trading or some wishful thinking.

I pretty much only invest in indices except for rare small fun picks where I'm ok with losing. But over the years there were certainly times where this was a too conservative stance. My small bets have outperformed my conservative portion - by a lot. That said, those times were I am confident in those bets are rare, like a few times a decade.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

The temptation is always there though. I have several stocks that produced life changing gains.

[pendenthistory]

Having nice gains early on fools you into thinking you're smarter than the market. That just makes your inevitable fall that much harder. Nobody made a lot of money on a stock and then thought to themself "I bet I was just lucky, I should probably stop now". Like everyone you will keep going until you lose out big.

[betaby]

> Don't pick individual stocks people

We are in the industry, and perhaps we indeed know better.

> buy broad index funds at most

That gives slightly better than the inflation rate ( Canada ).

[jonasdegendt]

> That gives slightly better than the inflation rate ( Canada ).

What do you mean? Over the last year any one of the index funds I'm in has beat inflation by a factor of five, some beat inflation by an order of magnitude. My worst performer is an iShares world fund, which generally has more temperate gains, clocking in at 10% YoY.

Looking at Canadian indices such as $VCN, it's the same story.

[betaby]

As of October 2025, in the previous 30 Years, the Vanguard FTSE Canada All Cap Index (VCN.TO) ETF obtained a 8.72% compound annual return.

~2x better than the official inflation over the same 30 years. I don't see the factor of five or order of magnitude. Also those gains are taxable.

[YZF]

If you're in Canada you almost certainly want to diversify from Canadian indices. US markets have tended to outperform.

Indices can return >20% one year and -10% other years. I think OP is talking recently, not over 30 years. Over the long term indices like the S&P 500 tend to have a real return of 6-7% ...

[osti]

That's the biggest problem I have with the recommendation to buy indices as if indices grow at >8% annually is an natural law.

Many (most) indices of countries in the world performed way less than 8%. US performed exceptionally well over almost a century so people are starting to take it as a natural law. If I buy US index, I'm still putting a directional bet on US stock market performing at an exceptional rate.

[throw0101a]

One can buy "all-in-one" index-of-index funds that have all US equities, all EU, etc. In Canada (which sub-thread stated with), see VEQT or XEQT (100% equities), VGRO/XGRO (80/20), VBAL/XBAL (60/40), VCNS/XCNS (40/60).

You can probably find an 'asset allocation' fund in most countries; e.g., in the US:

* https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-fun...

There are also (more dynamic) 'target date' funds, where the bond allocation increases over time.

[throw0101d]

> If you're in Canada you almost certainly want to diversify from Canadian indices. US markets have tended to outperform.

If you buy "all-in-one" VEQT/XEQT (100% equities) you are buying an index funds of index funds: all Canadian equities, all US equities, EU, etc:

* https://canadianportfoliomanagerblog.com/model-etf-portfolio...

* https://canadiancouchpotato.com/model-portfolios/

If you don't want 100% equities, there are VGRO/XGRO (80/20), VBAL/XBAL (60/40), VCNS/XCNS (40/60), etc.

[al_borland]

If you do want to dabble in individual stocks, keep it as a small percentage of your portfolio that you’re willing to lose.