Today, let’s talk about the pros and cons of investing in index funds versus stocks and learn from my personal investing mistake. At 22 years old, I lost half of my net worth due to a crucial lesson I’ll share. Now, closing in on two decades later, I’ve been financially independent—and vaguely retired—since 2018.
I tried my hand at picking individual stocks when I was younger.
In my early twenties, I read money magazines about investing in individual stocks, commodities, and precious metals.
Occasionally, I purchased shares in company stocks I thought stood a good chance to rise in the future.
Evaluating the risk of putting my money into individual stocks vs index funds—which own tiny slices of lots of companies—wasn’t even on my radar.
Back then, I lacked investing knowledge and couldn’t answer critical questions such as:
- How do index funds work and what are they based upon?
- What are the differences between ETFs and mutual funds?
- What advantages do ETFs offer compared to stocks?
- How can index funds mitigate risk through diversification?
- What distinguishes a bubble from stocks that consistently outperform the market?
- Why should we bother with index funds instead of seeking quick riches?
Pursuing quick riches by beating the “average,” which is represented by an index fund, seemed appealing. However, this mindset had a devastating impact on my personal finances.
Join me as I recount the destruction of half my net worth and unravel the mysteries surrounding these financial instruments.
- Experiencing a Stock Market Collapse
- Should You Invest in Index Funds or Stocks?
- My Most Expensive Mistake
Experiencing a Stock Market Collapse
I freaked out as half my life savings disappeared through late 2008 and into 2009.
My individual stocks underperformed the market.
Initially, these were just paper losses since I hadn’t sold my shares.
I’d returned from my stint in the Peace Corps to discover a dwindling net worth. I was in my mid-twenties and my nest egg wasn’t exactly huge, but it was all I had.
Initially, I held strong but the world was sounding the alarm.
Headline companies were going bankrupt.
Capitalism was dead!
This time it was different.
I wasn’t taking risks with my investments that are the good kind—that’s when you understand the type of fear that creates the risk and can mitigate it. Rather, my fear came from the uncertainty that I simply wasn’t comfortable with during a huge stock market downturn.
The constant dread got to me, and I sold.
I sold it all.
The end of capitalism and the markets
I took a capital loss of more than half of my total investments. I moved the money into safer investments: treasuries, money market funds, and savings.
Hell, I even put some money into leveraged inverse S&P500 tracking ETFs.
Oh, not familiar with that type of ETF?
I’m not surprised, as leveraged funds are one of the riskiest types of investments. These ETFs carry significant expenses to leverage or multiply with debt, the change in the index they track. In my case, if the S&P500 went down 5%, I’d earn 15% (minus some leverage expense). If it went up 5%, I’d be down 15% (plus some leverage expense).
I’d really not learned my lesson it seems.
Fortunately, I’d already lost most of my investment so as the market recovered and my risky bet cratered, I only lost a little more.
Of the $34,015 I’d squirreled away and gambled over 2007, and some of 2008, I had less than half my net worth in 2009. Of the balance, I withdrew $3,300 in early 2009 to put into savings—nearly nailing the market bottom of the Great Recession.
I pulled another $3,617 out in May of 2010 as the recovery took a small stumble.
I didn’t make serious investments again until late 2010, missing out on a large amount of the recovery. The S&P 500 had bottomed at about 666 points near Spring 2009. By the beginning of 2011, it’d already nearly doubled. A similar whipsaw had occurred with the individual stocks I’d owned, with both the trough and peaks more extreme due to the volatility in the individual stocks.
I lost half my net worth picking stocks
This was the moment I realized that maybe I wasn’t smarter than the average investor. Just like when we grow up thinking we’re physically invincible, we often think—and are reinforced with praise—that we’re above-average at many intellectual pursuits. It’s funny that a group that prides itself on math (personal finance generally), often has so much trouble identifying the mathematical likelihood that we’re a coin flip from being above average.
A FIRE writer I respect, Dave, happened to write about his worst money mistake recently. I’m lucky my worst mistake didn’t lead me down a darker path.
To give you an idea of just how financially damaging the loss was during this time, here’s my Social Security Earnings history (by the way, you can obtain this official record from my Social Security if you’re in the U.S., we published our earnings history from 2006-2018):
2008: $26,597
2009: $12,645
The decision to sell in 2009 had turned a paper loss into a realized loss of more than my entire earnings for the year.
The graph below reveals our net worth, including the 2008-2009 period, up until we reached financial independence in 2018. We turned things around after my episode of learning about stocks and index funds.
Read on to find out what I learned and what we changed in our investment strategy to send us the other direction and become millionaires in 10 years.
Should You Invest in Index Funds or Stocks?
As we’ve come out of another V-shaped dive in the stock market, I didn’t actually think much about our investments. If anything, I was trying to find some more money to invest with when things were looking grim—partly by rebalancing our portfolio.
Rather than being fearful, I was greedy.
But is this simply because I’m older now? Is it because of that previous mistake in the Great Recession?
What can you learn about investing in index funds vs stocks from my experience?
Emotional effects of stock market losses
Our paper losses during this recent market dive brought on by the pandemic equaled hundreds of thousands of dollars. Still, neither Jenni nor I really thought much about selling. I don’t think that’s because we’re “more experienced”, now.
I think it’s because we don’t own many individual stocks anymore. We’ve got a few shares from legacy accounts, but the vast majority of our wealth is tied up in index funds.
During the Great Recession, several individual companies were going bankrupt—Lehman Brothers, AIG, Fannie & Freddie—I remember General Motors going under chapter eleven bankruptcy!
Seeing those big names going under left me thinking that maybe my carefully handpicked stocks could also be bankrupt. After all, the one thing that enough time for stock values to recover won’t solve is an actual bankruptcy event.
At the time, I was fearful that one of my individual stocks would go to zero.
Reducing risk with diversification
The key difference in buying individual stocks vs a broad index fund like VTSAX for me is that I’m pinning my hopes on the entire US market instead of an individual stock.
Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSAX) is a well-known mutual fund that attempts to track the entire US stock market. It operates with incredibly low fees and has a very similar sister ETF with the tracker VTI. When comparing VTSAX vs VTI, the key difference is in the minimum investment amount (higher with VTSAX).
If VTSAX goes to zero, we’re all probably screwed anyway.
That’d mean capitalism in the U.S. has truly collapsed.
It really helps me sleep at night to know that the chance of our index fund investments going to zero is so much less likely even if there’s a huge hit to the economy like during a pandemic.
The world will eventually recover and so too will the broad market alongside your index funds.
Individual stocks and the companies they represent have a much higher chance of seeing bankruptcy during a bear market. Shareholders are often wiped out. Unless the industry or country your index fund represents collapses, it’s not going to zero.
Index Funds: ETFs or Mutual Funds
A learning moment: index funds aren’t a specific type of investment that you can actually purchase (like a stock or bond).
We talked about ETF vs stock before, and index funds can be an ETF like VTI which tracks the total US stock market. ETFs, if you recall, are traded like stock shares.
However, index funds can also be mutual funds like the much-loved VTSAX. Mutual funds are traded privately and are less transparent than ETFs or stocks on the public markets. Brokerage accounts might have higher fees to trade mutual funds. Mutual funds are traded daily (rather than in real-time with ETFs) and settle on a single price that everyone pays that day at the close.
Mutual funds can also be more tax-efficient than ETFs. You can learn a lot more about Vanguard’s incredibly popular US market index funds in another post: VTSAX vs VTI.
Stock picking vs index funds
Not all investors feel that risk reduction through index fund diversification is worth reducing their upside investment potential. It is true that higher risk yields higher returns, on average, over time. This is a key point people talk about when discussing stock-picking vs index funds.
It’s one of the reasons that stocks tend to beat bonds in the long term. It’s why lots of traders chase high beta (stocks with big swings up or down), as they think they can capitalize on the fast-moving changes better than others.
Jenni and I have been participating in the personal finance, FIRE, and investing Twitter-sphere since launching TicTocLife. Or at least, we’ve been trying to get the hang of it.
One of the threads I was following asked:
To my #dividend people: do you prefer dividend paying ETFs or picking individual stocks? Why?
@MindingMy30s
Lots of the Twitterverse jumped on the individual stock bandwagon. While this is a question around dividends, the sentiment still applies to the general idea of handpicked individual stocks vs index funds.
Here’s a selection of comments:
- “For those just starting, a broad market index fund is often a good idea considering most investors can’t beat the S&P500. Then once you have that base, you can start picking individual stocks as they generally offer more upside + higher yields.”
- “Indiviudals. More opportunity to gain advantages. You’ll pick some losers, but if you do it right, the winners will outshine the losers better than an ETF can track.”
- “Individual stocks. I can analyse balance sheets. I choose what I want. Not what someone else picks for me.”
- “Picking my own individual stocks. I like to make my own mistakes Especially when the economy is strong, I feel better taking on riskier stocks with higher dividends Also avoids management fees…”
- “World class, blue chip, perpetual dividend increasing individual stocks. I can target undervalued companies, I can strategically reallocate the dividends, I can shift strategy and optimize my portfolio in response to current world events.”
- “Stocks. I like to know what I’m holding and have control. I like to know at what sort of valuation I’m buying the stock and don’t feel like it warrants an annual fee.”
- “Leaning individual stocks for now because a lot of them are still on a nice discount and have great growth upside.”
- “Individual stocks due to the tracking error some etfs have as well as the stable growth potential of one really solid company.”
Do you see a common theme here?
People want to have control.
People think they’re better than average at picking stocks.
Even as the first comment I highlighted mentioned that most investors can’t beat the S&P500 by picking individual stocks, they proceed to recommend them.
Passive vs. active investing
The common wisdom is that most people can’t beat the S&P500. I wanted to understand just how uncommon it was.
There’s a primary source many financial outlets cite to suggest that most investors can’t beat the market. It is an analysis performed by none other than the company behind the DOW itself: S&P Global. They publish a scorecard multiple times per year for different regions and industries around the world pitting active investors against passive indexes.
Per their 2019 year-end analysis, 70% of domestic equity funds lagged the S&P 1500 composite they track for the year. A similar result occurs internationally.
That means that the professionals, most of the time, can’t beat the market. These are the companies dedicated to financial analysis with all the research and tools available to beat individual investors into oblivion.
What chance do we amateur investor gals and guys have?
Some amateurs and some professional money managers will beat the market, but it’s luck and by extension—a very rare skill.
I know what some of you are thinking: “but I am that skilled!”
I’m making the assertion that it’s more luck than skill, not only from the 70% figure already discussed but also because the chances of beating broad market index funds with individual stock picks get worse over longer periods.
Risk-adjusted stock return
S&P Global releases a risk-adjusted scorecard, that among other things we’ll discuss, tracks the active versus passive investing approach over a longer timeframe. Once the comparison is held over 10 or 15-year periods, the odds of passive indexes beating their active counterparts reach upwards of 90% in many different sectors.
As time passes, the chance a stock picker will beat index funds, decreases. With time, more chance is removed from the equation.
The risk-adjusted scorecard also accounts for, well, risk—it’s a common thought that though passive indexes may beat active managers, they often won’t do so during downturns. The rationale is that active managers will move funds into safer assets during a downtown, protecting the principal. Passive index funds will continue to match their index along with underlying businesses, right into bankruptcy.
The scorecard develops a clear methodology for how they ascertain risk adjustment, but ultimately the result is:
Actively managed domestic and international equity funds across almost all categories did not outperform the benchmarks on a risk-adjusted basis
Risk-Adjusted SPIVA® Scorecard
It’s important to note that this is even when the scorecard works from a gross-of-fee basis. This means that even where the analysis ignores the fees active managers charge they still lose to passive index funds. This is even where the comparison is risk-adjusted which active managers are supposed to be better!
Individual stocks vs index funds summary
Let’s do a little review and summarize the benefits of investing in individual stocks vs index funds.
Pros of investing in individual stocks
You could beat the market. It might be statistically unlikely as we review, but it’s not impossible. If your investment goals require you to beat the market, you’ll need to be willing to take on the risk necessary to do so. Index funds that represent the average of the market, sector, style, or industry simply won’t beat their underlying index. They’re the average after all.
You’re in control. If your net worth jumps based upon your stock picking—you did it. You’re the one that made the decision. Similarly, if your investments crater, it was your decision to own the stocks you picked. For some people, having this sense of control over their destiny is important.
Leverage your knowledge. If you have inside knowledge within an industry or product, you might be able to leverage that to make keen investment observations. Perhaps you work at the forefront of new technology or innovative product development. Investing in index funds will only water down the value of your inside knowledge.
Pros of investing in index funds
Less mental weight. By investing in index funds, you’re relying on professionals to do the research for you and create a diversified group of investments within your chosen sector. You won’t feel the need to monitor the progress of an individual company’s product development or particular new technology innovations. You’ll earn your slice of investment returns through the index fund. You can get on with what you’re good at and enjoy your life.
Diversification. Even small, industry-specific index funds offer a huge advantage over individual stocks: they let you diversify your investments. By owning only a handful of individual stocks, you concentrate your investment returns. Sure, individual stocks might let you beat the market—but you absorb the risk of bankruptcy and other unexpected negative events, too. Managing a diversified portfolio of individual stocks would mean doing due diligence on many dozens, if not hundreds of companies.
Cost. Unless you’re willing to take on serious risk, index funds offer incredible value through their diversification. With exceedingly low fees since they’re not actively managed, index funds offer exposure to hundreds if not thousands of companies. For example, VTSAX’s expense ratio is 0.04%. That means you pay a whopping $4 on $10,000 invested. Quite the deal to own part of about 3,500 companies.
Index funds vs stocks FAQ
It’s fun to tell a story, but let’s clear up some frequently asked questions about index funds vs stocks and do a little review.
It’s incredibly unlikely, but if all companies represented in an index fund were to enter bankruptcy, it’s possible.
Vanguard popularized index funds in the 1970s as a low cost way to own tiny slices of lots of companies the index represents without involving active money managers with high fees. Yes, they’re still a good investment but require due diligence like any other investment.
Yes. Our index fund investments have appreciated hundreds of thousands of dollars on our path to financial independence and reached $1.2M in 2018. In the decade between July 2010 and 2020, a $10,000 investment in VTSAX would have grown to about $37,000—a 270% increase. Over 10 years, that’s an annual growth rate of about 14%! It’s hard to find another investment that pays 14% a year.
Index funds follow specific policies and strategies to match their underlying index. Even if it seems clear to the investing world that a company is cratering, an index fund may continue to have to hold it right up until they’re delisted from the index. This was a hot topic with GM during the 08-09 Great Recession as GM reached bankruptcy. Index mutual funds can’t be traded as quickly as stocks though index ETFs can.
Index funds aren’t a specific asset type you can purchase. They come in two flavors: a mutual fund and an exchange-traded fund (ETF) which trades like a stock. Either one can reflect an underlying index of companies.
Got a question about index funds vs stocks we didn’t answer? Post a comment at the end of the article!
My Most Expensive Mistake
I dumped hours into learning how to evaluate company balance sheets, researching different industries, understanding commodity trades, and so much more during 2007-2008. Hundreds of hours that could have gone to improve my career skills, or hell, just having fun in my twenties!
I could have been working to build the life I wanted after figuring out how much money is enough for me.
I sold stock at the bottom of one of the worst bear markets in the last century, taking a realized loss larger than my earnings for that year. The experience delayed my return to the market for over a year, causing me to lose out on much of the recovery. The opportunity cost mixed with the realized losses easily beats out my terrible experience with lifestyle creep.
Had I simply kept the money in the market in an index fund, I could have been in a stronger financial position today and avoided the time sunk learning detailed investment theory.
Early retirement and freedom could have come even sooner.
That’s one expensive lesson.
What do you think about investing in index funds vs stocks?
What about passive versus active funds?
What’ve you learned from my mistakes?
Let us know in the comments!
33 replies on “Individual Stocks vs Index Funds: Avoid My Costly Mistake”
OMG, I cringed while reading your story about pulling out during the 08-09 recession. Ah, but – hey – it sounds like you learned your (costly) lesson. And I couldn’t agree more with all of this!
When I saw those responses to my tweet (thanks for including me, by the way!) I was shocked at how many people preferred to own and invest in individual stocks! Then again, this is the Twitter world we’re talking about.
If someone was truly curious about how the stock market functions on a more intimate level and wants to get their hands dirty, then I can empathize with the desire to spend, let’s say, $5K for stock market ‘play’ money where you pick a few individual stocks and try to learn/understand it. But I couldn’t see wanting to do more. Not only is it financially not in your best interest, but you will lose so much time trying to understand the individual company and when to sell/buy.
Like you said, just buy and hold in a broad based index fund like VTSAX (my personal favorite too!) and you will not only do just fine, you’ll fare far better than those actively playing the game. The only hard part will be stomaching the drops. When that happens just don’t look at your investments! 🙂 Of course, easier said than done.
Great post – really engaging writing. Loved this!
Liz,
Thanks for such kind words! Yep, it seems like we all (well, many of us) need to go through that expensive lesson 😉
I think if you’re going to experiment (like your $5k play), it might make sense to invest in things you support as a mission rather than as a financial choice. For example, perhaps you believe in sustainable plant-based meat and want to support lab-based meat replacements. Presumably, you’d still do the work to understand the investment but also have the internal satisfaction of supporting a cause you believe in if it goes belly-up.
Thanks again!
Excellent. In the beginning I was invested in a few weird active funds which had ridiculous fees. I even remember how clueless I was sitting with the bank’s advisor. I cringe when I think about it now.
You know, this quote for me is the key to successfully “surviving” the volatility of the equity markets.
“If VTSAX goes to zero, we’re all probably screwed anyway. That’d mean capitalism in the U.S. has truly collapsed.”
I always tell myself that if everything goes to 0 then I’ll have bigger things to worry about.
For sure! Going into my initial investing foray, I was confident I would weather future downturns and be confident my stocks would one day rise again. I really didn’t properly account for how fearful I would be of actual bankruptcies since there’s no coming back from those!
Mate love the site. Can I ask please what % you have in index funds vs individual stock picks? I have 70% index funds with 15% active fund plays and 15% individual stock pics.
Steve, glad you’re enjoying it!
These days we’re probably at about 99% index funds. Off the top of my head I can only think of about $15K or so in individual stocks which are in my HSA. I believe that’s STX, QCOM, and MKL.
When I wrote this it was probably closer to 2%—I’ve been slowly weeding through my various accounts the last year and killing off the old stock investments that remain.
I don’t think having a small bit of your portfolio in speculative investments is bad if it also lets you keep investing the vast majority of your portfolio for the long term!
What were those “weird active funds with ridiculous fees,” if you don’t mind sharing?
Really can’t even remember. I was so gulible back then. All I know is that the bank’s investment advisor was getting commission for feeding it down customers throats.
No fund manager is worth a 1.5%-2% annual fee.
Just recently found your blog – writing some great stuff. Reminds me of the early MMM days. Excited to keep reading.
Whoa whoa… that’s high praise!
On the other hand this (attached image) is in the ol’ drafts folder…
Thanks for the comment and be sure to keep tuned in (email subscription)!
More coming every week.
funny thing here is that even though we’re older than y’all we started really investing around 05 or 06 but did not sell at the bottom and kept buying. that was a big help in getting where we are today. i used to own some bad individual stocks like mining companies, oil drillers, etc. i got better at investing and we now own around 35 individual stocks that make up 57% of our non-housing assets. last year we were up 58% and this year it’s 54% to date compared to -3 for the vtsax. i don’t know how long it will last but we are not traders but buy and hold strong growth companies. i write about it monthly in the malevolent missy investment series and put out all our own holdings once a month. all that being said most people should index but consider a little qqq.
all things being equal we don’t care what the rest of the world does as it’s their hard earned money. those when the pie was smaller was the equivalent of an MBA from the school of life. salud.
Freddy,
Oh man, miners and extractors… I wonder how much money I really lost getting involved with commodities and peak oil back then.
I do appreciate the idea that those losses contributed to a bit of an MBA in the school of life, though. After all, that MBA would be pretty expensive!
Ever since I learned about Vanguard and index investing, I have been in love with both. But the temptation to do individual stocks has been near-irresistible at times. Just look at what happened recently with Gamestop or what has been happening with Bitcoin.
One of my friends buys individual stocks. He has about 60 stocks. I simply follow the S&P 500. In one six-month period here was how we did.
His total investment of about $25,000 grew to $90,000, a $65,000 return on investment. He was constantly watching the market and selling when share values dropped, to retain his gains. On the other hand, in that same period, my index fund of about $41,000 only had a gain of $13,000.
I understand the wisdom of investing in an index fund, but I also see how much potential gains I am allowing to slip away by continuing to stick with index investing only.
Now, to the question of what will happen long term: Well, nobody can be sure. Will my friend’s investment do better than mine? Will mine do better than his? Nobody knows.
Lovers of index funds say long-term the S&P 500 is likely to outperform the investments of individual stock pickers. But we can break down this “long-term” into shorter periods of six months, for example. If my friend’s investments continue to behave the way it did in the six-month period I referenced above, then there’s no way my index fund investment can even come close to his, let alone beat it.
I love the simplicity that index funds offers. I love the lower level of risk associated with index funds. But if an investor constantly keeps his eye on the market, like my friend does, his risk will not be greater than mine. He would, in a downturn, sell off badly performing stocks before he loses all the gains he has made on those stocks.
Hey Kpekus!
Thanks for coming by.
You’re right that, in general, index investing is going to limit you to some level of “average” return (whatever the index tracks). You simply won’t ever earn outsize gains that individual stocks (or, as you mentioned some crypto or other speculative assets) could earn.
As for your anecdotal experience alongside your friend:
“If my friend’s investments continue to behave the way they did in the six-month period I referenced above, then there’s no way my index fund investment can even come close to his, let alone beat it.”
The keyword there is “if”.
I think it’s really important to consider that studies that suggest most individual stock investors won’t beat index funds don’t mean *none* will. Just on average.
Think of it like this: life expectancy in the US is just under 79 years old.
But I know a lot of folks over 80. It’s very common! But, statistically, you’d lose a bet *on average* that would suggest a random person lives past this age. However, plenty of people will live beyond that age.
Perhaps your friend is the one that beats the odds, but that doesn’t mean you (or I, or most) can too.
To your last point:
“But if an investor constantly keeps his eye on the market, as my friend does, his risk will not be greater than mine.”
I don’t agree that by simply watching the market (and presumably acting quickly), your friend reduces his investment risk equivalent to you (being in a diversified portfolio). If that was the case, large institutional investors who have far better, real-time access to investment data and faster trading than your friend with teams doing this 24/7 would consistently beat the market. But studies show that they don’t.
But perhaps more importantly than that, at least to me, and I suspect maybe to you is the idea of “constantly keeps his eye on the market”.
You know what I want to do with my life? Not sit in front of a screen watching the market move from 9:30AM to 4:00PM Monday through Friday (plus aftermarket hours), stressed out and ready to make a move if “something” happens at any moment. That sounds horrendously stressful.
A lot of what we write about on this blog is about reaching “enough”. Even if I somehow knew that I was one of the rare investors that could consistently beat the market by a bit, but it’d require my efforts and stress daily, that still wouldn’t be worth it. I know how much money is enough for us, we don’t need more—the money is for living life. Not the other way around.
I greatly appreciate you writing out a thoughtful, interesting comment Kpekus. I’m not an investment advisor, but from my point of view, I think you’re doing just fine with index funds. Careful not to let comparison be your thief of joy, even in your investments.
“You know what I want to do with my life? Not sit in front of a screen watching the market move from 9:30AM to 4:00PM Monday through Friday (plus aftermarket hours), stressed out and ready to make a move if ‘something’ happens at any moment. That sounds horrendously stressful.”
I’ll speak to the quote above first because it matters a great deal. Do I want to spend a significant part of my life watching the stock market and getting stressed out? Do I want to be constantine buying and selling stocks and researching companies? Definitely not. So, what option should I pursue? Answer: index funds.
Now, it seems to me, and you mentioned this in the article, that those individual stick pickers who succeed in beating the average of the market are just lucky, not more capable than anyone else If this is correct, then it’s germane to wonder about the usefulness of experts who manage actively managed funds. Are they useless? I cannot say yes to that, but I I’ll continue to stick with index funds. I like that no one is there constantly messing with the funds just so they can charge expensive fees (which affect the expense ratios of the fund), just so they can be seen to be doing something.
“a $10,000 investment in VTSAX would have grown to about $37,000. That’s a 370% jump!”.
I appreciate the thoughts about index funds, but for someone giving financial advice, this is really horrible math. By this logic, a $10,000 investment that stayed flat at $10,000 has experienced a 100% jump.
Growing by from $10K to $37K is a 270% jump. And that over 10 years is an annual growth rate of 14% (1.14^10 = 3.7). That’s what should be said — because it’s hard to find another investment that pays 14% a year.
Hey Arman!
I really appreciate you taking the time, not only to comment but to pipe up and point out something confusing! Catching something unclear or a mistake and making the effort to get it corrected helps loads of other readers who almost certainly have run across the same thing and missed it (or worse, confused by it!). Thanks for making time!
I went back through the post revisions to figure out where this came from and it’s from a fairly recent revision on the post (so fewer folks have read it, which is a good thing). Initially, the summation read “That’s 3.7x your money!”, which is accurate but read funny. Quick editing adjusted it to 370% which can indeed be confusing when you phrase it as an increase (“jump”) since having “1% of your money” would suggest you lost 99% whereas having “1% increase of your money” would suggest an additional 1% over your base. I certainly agree with your underlying point!
I like the way you’ve phrased it and so have adjusted the section to read similarly:
Oh and I should say: we don’t offer financial advice—just our experiences and what we’ve learned. 🙂 Thanks again and I hope you stick around!
Thanks so much for this post! Much love from The Bahamas
Thanks Aaron! We love visiting the islands around you—especially Georgetown (Stocking Island). Where about are you?
FYI, had you invested $1000 each in the top 10 S&P 500 components in 2011 on June 25, today you would have a portfolio that valued $52,337. A $10k investment in VTSAX on the same date in 2011 today would be worth $40,506.
So, a 4.05x in a “diversified” index fund versus a 5.2x with “risky” individual stocks. And that even includes a laggard like GE, and companies like XOM, Chevron, and IBM, that basically flatlined over the last 10 years. Apple, Microsoft, and Google 10x’d. Berkshire nearly 3.3x’d, as did Wal-Mart. PG went up 2.8x.
Why did I put “diversified” in quotation marks above? Because you’re not really diversified. You’re all in on one fund, in this case, VTSAX. VTSAX itself is diversified in hundreds of companies, yes, but in reality, you are only getting the benefit of the fund’s overall growth, not the growth of the underlying investments, which, as I’ve just demonstrated above, is less than what you would get had you invested directly in the top 10 companies.
It took me seconds of Googling to locate the top 10 2011 S&P companies. So, it’s not like I had to pour hours of hard research into these stocks. At least, it’s as much research as one might have done in a easy, passive “no-brainer” index fund like VTSAX.
The top 10 stocks I mentioned are certainly not penny stocks, random moon shots, or meme stocks like AMC or GME. You would not have had to luck out or something to beat VTSAX, or almost any index fund. You would have simply had to invest in top performing companies, and held for the long term. A glance at the top 10 holdings in each fund, which is provided on Yahoo Finance, would have sufficed.
Furthermore, continued investing over the ensuing years in individual leading S&P 500 stocks (and other leading index stocks), might have produced even greater returns than the 5.2x I demonstrated above. For example, you might have invested in NVDA, Netflix, Amazon, some of which would have seen 10x returns and above. Even investing in Tesla in late 2018 would have given you about a 13x+ return. A stake in Tesla around 2012 or ’13 would have 100x’d. Would you have landed on some bad stocks? For sure. But the winners would have more than made up for it, and you’d still have outpaced broad index funds tracking the S&P, Russell 2000, or even the Nasdaq.
The company PLUG, for instance, a top holding in the Russell, 14x’d between 2011 and today. Caesars Entertainment, another Russell top 10, about 25x’d from 2012. Meanwhile, IWM about 4x’d over the last decade.
A stake in QQQ over the last 10 years would have 6x’d, while Amazon nearly 15x’d. So, had you gone the Nasdaq route instead of the S&P 500, individual stocks still would have beaten the index. And you would have also seen stocks like Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google, almost all 10xers over the last 10.
Basically, to beat the 10xing and higher stocks mentioned above, you would have had to have gotten creative, and say, sold monthly ATM covered calls on SPY, never had the stock called away, all while capturing the growth in the stock (including dividends). Had you somehow pulled all that off (virtually impossible, BTW) you would have seen about a 28% annual return on the stock. Apple did 29% between 2011 and today, for comparison, and all you would have had to do was hold it.
Just some food for thought. I’m not totally against index funds, mind you. They have a place in a portfolio. It’s more the lazy mindset and ideology they encourage that I resent. Well, that “easy, passive” investing is actually costing you money, and lots of it, as I’ve shown here. Someone who only throws money at VTSAX (or SPY, QQQ, IWM, VTI, VOO, etc.) thinking it’s some guarantee to wealth, is missing out on the opportunities of the underlying. They’re not looking for the “next big thing,” they’re staying stuck with the “safe” thing, which isn’t safe really, when you factor in inflation and opportunity cost. Whereas, someone who takes their portfolio more seriously and critically, well, they’re probably going to put some skin into a Tesla or Netflix. Or maybe they jump on Bitcoin early. Yeah, they’ll get burnt on something like Nikola here and there, but we’ve seen stocks mostly rise over the last ten, even ones that have hardly made any profit yet (like Tesla). Sticking with index funds is shortchanging yourself.
Hey Dean!
I really appreciate you coming by and writing a detailed comment with a variety of thoughts across investing topics.
That said, overall, I’m not too sure where you’re going with your points. What’s the ultimate goal here? Towards the end you mentioned:
“It’s more the lazy mindset and ideology [index funds] encourage that I resent.”
Should readers understand that to mean your goal is to encourage folks to put more effort into investing? If I accept that as your target, I can understand the point, but I’m not sure that’s the goal of many folks. Personally, I want my dollars to support our future lifestyle by beating inflation through capital gains and dividends while allowing us to pull about 4% out of their assets each year. That’s the principles behind the Trinity Study, which is well supported. I don’t need more money than that. Each additional dollar earned through investment (or work!) has diminishing value to me because our current assets support the lifestyle we desire. We have enough. It’s the same reason Jenni nor I really work anymore. The dollars aren’t worth the invested time to us. I believe many readers feel similarly—they want an approach that will earn them most of the upside with a relatively small amount of effort—think Pareto principle.
To be clear, and perhaps in support of your overall suggestion that individual stocks (or Bitcoin, etc.!) make sense within the context of some portfolios, if we needed to earn a large sum of money in a short period of time for a particular reason, putting our earnings into savings accounts, CDs, and bonds, probably wouldn’t be the way to go. If I have $100K/year to work with from a job and can’t earn more money while also needing to have $10M in 10 years, there’s just no (mathematical) way I’m going to get there by investing my $100K/year in low return accounts like that. While a broad index fund investment in something like the S&P500 or even VTSAX will certainly do better, statistically, they still won’t give me much of a shot to go from $1M of earnings to $10M of assets within 10 years. At that point, I’d have to be shooting for the fences in much higher-risk investments.
I think what you might be missing is the mindset difference between these two different sets of goals.
So far as your calculations on returns—
You frequently state a particular individual stock had greater returns than a particular index given a particular period. I wouldn’t disagree. Buying AMZ 10 years ago certainly would have produced exceptional returns, and easily beat an S&P500 fund or VTSAX/VTI. Apple, Netflix, and a variety of others you mentioned did the same. I’m not really sure where you’re going with these examples aside from stating that some individual stocks beat some funds in some periods. I think that’s common sense, or at least should be, to any amateur investor. The hard part is understanding when to buy those individual stocks (or Bitcoin, etc.), with how much of your available assets, and perhaps most importantly—when to sell them. Your writing suggests that should be easy, but statistically, most folks can’t beat an index. Some absolutely do. But, on average, most don’t. No doubt, all who are dabbling in such investments think they’re part of the few that can do better. I cited examples of this within the article, but there are numerous other studies out there that most investors don’t beat the index.
You opened this comment with the idea that the top 10 companies in the S&P 500 will beat the overall S&P 500. Within the period you chose, it seems they did (I didn’t check your math but will assume it’s accurate—during this bull market, I’d think it makes sense). But is that true from 2009 to 2019, too? What about 2007-2017? How about 1980 to 1990? And if you’re going with this strategy (buy the top 10 S&P 500 companies), when do you time the purchase? Do you always hold for 10 years or do you readjust when a company falls out of the “top 10”? If this strategy has always beat the index, it’d seem you’ve got a solution to beating the market that anyone could replicate and make crazy amounts of money becoming the next investor more famous than Warren Buffett.
Thanks again for the thoughtful comment, Dean, and for giving me something to chew on. I’m sure readers look forward to your follow-up as well.
Basically, my argument is against index fund maximalism.
You pay a price (both financial and psychological) for the ease and convenience that index funds offer. That price being that you are insulated from the stronger returns of high performing individual stocks, in favor of so-called “diversification,” and you are discouraging yourself from actively seeking out investing opportunities, and instead sticking with the safety of the index. Even Warren Buffett, a big index fund advocate, doesn’t just do that. I believe his company has averaged 20% returns (which obviously beats the average 11% S&P return) over the years, helped no doubt in part due to his massive individual holdings in companies like Apple and others. If we’re truly diversifying, why wouldn’t we invest in both index funds AND high performing stocks?
Overall, index funds are advertised as a middle-class elevator ride to riches. Though in function they serve more as wealth preservation tools for beating inflation, and securing a modest retirement (based on the 4% rule). It’s playing not to lose. Which is fine. I’d hate to accumulate $1m in Enron at age 65 and then it all goes kaput. But again, if we’re following true diversification, you’d never put everything into Enron to begin with.
You mentioned the challenge of choosing when to buy individual stocks, and comparing other historical returns versus the previous ten-year period I mentioned. A fair argument, though it could also be directed at index funds, not just individual stocks. VTSAX was flat between 2000 to 2010. Had you only invested during that time, you might be led to think index funds are junk. If you had invested right at the bottom post-GFC in 2009 when it was around $18, you’d have nearly 6x’d your gains between then and now. A decent return. Though in reality, you’d have likely DCA’d into the fund in a 401k or IRA, so the overall return would be more muted.
Another issue I have with index fund maximalism is that IFs owe their returns almost entirely to the high performers (FAANG stocks, etc.). You take those out and you’re left with what, 5 or 6% a year? Almost an annuity at that point. Whereas if you have a more mixed portfolio with IFs and even just some of those high flyers, you’re looking at much higher returns overall, even if you get an occasional Nikola in there or something.
To summarize, index funds are important to have in a balanced portfolio, but I think they’re often overhyped to the public as safe and diversified. At the end of the day, it’s still exposure to one asset class, which is itself risky no matter how diversified one may be within it. Which is why I say the mindset that should be encouraged is a cross-sectional one that actively looks for good investments in a variety of asset classes. Not a passive, closed mindset that throws it all in IFs thinking they are some guaranteed easy solution. There were plenty of diversified funds that got blown up in the GFC because they had exposure to bad mortgage derivatives. It was Fed stimulus and QE (not to mention strong performing companies) that kept things supported.
I think that’d depend on the index fund and the stock. For example, I wrote an article recently about GameStop and my ownership of it. Cutting to the chase: I calculated I own a share or two of GME through VTSAX since VTSAX covers the entire US market. If I purchased more GME today, I wouldn’t be diversifying.
On the topic of diversification, you’ve quoted “” diversification a few times related to index funds. At least as you’ve written, you seem to suggest that buying individual stocks is diversifying (as compared to index funds). I suppose that could be true if your index fund was specifically tracking an industry or sector—say, healthcare—and you compared it to a broad basket of individual stocks across industries and sectors. At that point, I might consider the individual stock portfolio more diverse.
But that’s just effectively creating your own index and building a basket of them. Your own index fund. Nothing wrong with that. Index funds are just a pre-programmed version of that where the owner doesn’t need to go out and do the work to identify a quality set of stocks (or other assets) that would represent the named goal of that fund. There’s nothing particularly special about index funds in this regard—an investor can replicate them exactly with individual stocks. That’d also save them the related expense ratios.
I think the core point we might disagree on here is that it’s possible for the average investor to identify the “high performing stocks”. I’d love to invest in nothing but high-performing stocks. I don’t believe that I (or your average investor) am able to consistently do that. If you disagree with that idea, we won’t really agree on a strategy beyond that. In other words, my goal is to simply capture the average return (minus expense ratios and other fees)—nothing beyond that. If you believe you can identify high-performing stocks, however, you might be better served to concentrate your investments—be it your previously mentioned strategy of the top 10 companies in the S&P, or something else. Beyond identifying them, beating the market also means knowing how to time your purchase and sale.
A lot of what you’ve stated follows thinking like this: had you only known in advance that X company or Y index would have performed in such a way, you could have avoided it (or doubled down on it) and made a lot more money (similar to the quote above). I think that’s common sense. The problem is in the knowing in advance. Again, if you think you can do so, you should be an all-star investor. Put your efforts there! 🙂
This much we agree on! I think they are often discussed as if they’re safer than they are…but, I also think, despite this, far too many people treat long-term investing in broad index funds as riskier than it is! I think it’s surprising how those two ideas can be true at the same time, but far too often folks have loads of cash in checking/savings/CDs for long periods that are eaten by inflation and low returns. On top of that, your other point rings true that index funds are still just a single asset class (which overlaps individual stocks). There’s a place for bonds, cash, real estate, etc. in different people’s strategies depending on where they are in life. And there’s certainly room for less common assets (fine art, crypto, etc.) once a stable, consistent investing for the long-term mindset is established with a balance sheet to support it. Cheers!
I’m curious to know – of the 30% of investors that can beat the S&P500, how much are they actually beating it by? I imagine the majority are only beating it by 1 or 2% which is what most charge in fees anyways. I’d make the argument that only 5-10% actually beat the S&P500 + cost of fees. Juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Is it really worth the risk of #1 70% not beating the avg & #2 factoring in FEES. Just be patient and stick to what has proven to work through numerous recessions, global turmoil, and even war. The self cleansing element of an index fund will always make it a viable option. As GM falls out of favor, a company like Tesla emerges etc, etc
Great points, KJ! I’m not sure how frequently investors beat the market when considering both fees and risk—but surely to your point, it’s rare.
I think it can make sense to try to do it, if you’re pretty assured of yourself and there’s a goal you’re trying to reach in a specific timeline, it’s probably smarter than literal gambling though I’m not sure which would be more effective, on average!
You didn’t waste your time, you gained knowledge and learned a lot early. I was about 30 when I took a 10K loan against my jeep and then lost it on margin and options…and that was right BEFORE the dot.com crash. I am in my early 50s and in much better shape. One account does have a money manager at 1% fee, the bigger account is boring index funds, and my taxable account has some individual stocks and index funds…and sometimes VERY small plays on options…like the kind that one make me lose sleep if they go to zero.
Sounds like the right sort of balance, Chris! I think if some small “bets” in things like crypto, individual stocks, options, etc. will make the other vast majority of your investing in broad index funds sustainable and consistent then it’s a small price to pay. It’s that marathon approach that matters; not perfection. ?
I really enjoyed reading your article and it’s very well written. It’s amazing how finance talk/news is numbingly boring for those not on the wheel. Now I’ve started investing in my own retirement fund I just can’t get enough. My decision start my own retirement fund came from leaving the safety of the UK and working in Cambodia. It’s all fun and games at first but it dawned on me I no longer had any money going towards retirement. After much deliberation I opened a brokerage account and bought VTI. Admittedly I have gone into the QQQM Nasdaq 100 recently as I hope this will give better growth. My plan is to sell the Nasdaq and move over to VTI again when hopefully one day in the not too distant future my pot is worth $100,000. I have friends in their 70’s who have lived in SE Asia their whole lives and never put hardly any money away for retirement so they will never be able to retire. The power of time and compound interest is amazing. I’m still at the fairly early stage where I’m trying to stash away as much Dollar as possible but it will eventually reach a tipping point where the monthly gains from the shares will far exceed the amount I’m able to save every month in which case I can just sit back relax and enjoy my day job money while I wait some years for my retirement pot to ferment some more before it’s ready to sample.
“just can’t get enough”
*just can’t get enough*
Haha, you’ve got a tune going in my head, TC! 😉
Good on you! It sounds like you’ve got an idea for “Coast FI” in your head. A future where you just need generally expected growth (say 7%/year) to takeover and drive you into financial independence territory while you keep just paying the bills. That’ll be a fun place to be!
Glad you enjoyed the article! 🙂 Stick around!
My last semester in College, the Professor had a Bank of America employee tell us that you have to trade and make 20% and pay the taxes and time the two year bear market to equate making monthly payments to the SP 500 and only paying taxes on the dividend. 9 to 10 % return for 20-50 years of investing. Only 3K per year can go against your income for taxes. I have 166 years of capital losses. I am screwed, doing covered calls and selling puts to get back to break even. Worst mistake ever, I am 47 years old.
Rob,
That BoA employee might have been technically right (it’s difficult to beat the standard ~10% S&P return over the longterm), and it’d take some great years to make up for the years you’d get screwed when trading frequently.
Sounds like you’re sitting on one heck of a loss. I’m really sorry to hear that. If I read your comment right, it sounds like you’re currently doing calls and puts to try to get back to zero? Or are you saying that’s how you got to where you are?
47 isn’t young, but it ain’t old either. You’ve got time. Try to find some solace in that. And keep coming by here!
Sorry to hear about the recession losses. I think we’ve all taken huge losses before. I remember I lost all my savings of $10K when I first started out in my career, overnight, because I shorted a company that went up 100% lol. Ouch.
Funny when I think back at it.
Currently, I’m just long and unlike conventional wisdom, I never ‘pull out’ anymore if the market dips. In fact, I buy more indices when it dips, with joy, hoping it’ll dip some more. Had a great time buying in March 2020.
But nowadays, I’m quite fearful because the market’s been up quite a bit and all the stats indicate it’ll go down a lot eventually. And I’ve just gotten a fairly large windfall from a real estate deal exiting, so I have the dilemma of: “well, I know I shouldn’t time the market, but I also don’t want to throw 6 figures into the market and have it dip 30% next week, since it’ll be hard for my cash to dollar cost average my position out of that.”
I’ve veered way off topic at this point but I might just purchase I bonds instead as apparently from now til April they’re like 7% which isn’t huge, but I really don’t know what to do with my cash right now.
I chanced upon this article when researching stocks vs index funds in retirement accounts. Thanks for the enjoyable (and very simplified) read.
I dabbled in high return mutual funds (obviously sold them at the market lows in 2008 like most amazing investors ) , individual stocks, and eventually index ETFs. The stock ride was fun as I enjoyed the research , especially around industries i knew inside out and generally outperformed the indices. But there was no way I could keep on top of things and also have a day job.
Over the last few years, I moved the majority of my accounts to robo advisors. They are a heck more diversified than what I could ever come up with. I have a couple of older accounts which have individual stocks (all dividend paying) and am tempted to move them to the robo advisors. I know the returns will be “average “ compared to co-workers who crow about how much they made on Tesla, but you cannot put a price on not having grey hair (or a full head of hair) in your forties. I think what most people confuse about articles like yours is “but this approach wont get me $10M by 55”. What they miss is that you can be happy and have a comfortable lifestyle with far less than that.
As a general question: did you invest in a portfolio of index funds or did you pick single funds which track the S&P or NASDAQ? This is more around how you handle concentration risk in your portfolio.