Yes, you may be able to beat the market, but with investment fees, taxes, and human emotion working against you, you're more likely to do so through luck than skill. If you can merely match the S&P 500, minus a small fee, you'll be doing better than most investors.
Why is it so hard to beat the market? A prime reason is that the skewed pattern of market returns stacks the odds against investors. Typically, a few high-performing stocks pull the average up, while the majority of stocks under-perform.
How to Invest in the Stock Market
Yes, it's hard. Investing is more than being good with numbers and charts - it's more of an art form. You have to learn the basics and fail several times before you hit your stride and become profitable.
When buying individual stocks, you see reduced fees. You no longer have to pay the fund company an annual management fee for investing your assets. ... The longer you hold the stock, the lower your cost of ownership is. Since fees have a big impact on your return, this alone is a good reason to own individual stocks.
Don't just invest in the S&P 500
It may be tempting to just invest in the S&P 500, especially in a year when U.S. stocks are significantly up. But if you do this, you'll be missing out on an opportunity to diversify your portfolio and your long-term returns may suffer as a result.
Over the past two decades, Buffett has done reasonably well against the index, actually beating the S&P 500 in 12 calendar years between 1999 and 2020.
“It turned out that less than 1% of day traders were able to beat the market returns available from a low-cost ETF. Moreover, over 80% of them actually lost money,” Malkiel says, citing a Taiwanese study.
The market average can be calculated in many ways, but usually a benchmark – such as the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average index – is a good representation of the market average. If your returns exceed the percentage return of the chosen benchmark, you have beaten the market.
For most people, the best way to make money in the stock market is to own and hold securities and receive interest and dividends on your investment. This is a long-term process, but it's one that more consistently leads to big gains compared to rapid or impulsive trading.
| Stocks with the Most Momentum | ||
|---|---|---|
| Price ($) | Market Cap ($B) | |
| L Brands Inc. ( LB) | 67.44 | 18.8 |
| Tesla Inc. ( TSLA) | 694.40 | 666.5 |
| Freeport-McMoRan Inc. ( FCX) | 39.35 | 57.6 |
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