One thing that has always bothered me is when I see news articles profiling people who have made a lot of money after hitting it big with a single stock. In recent weeks, we’ve seen stories about people who have become millionaires thanks to investing in Tesla or Bitcoin. Not too long ago, we were seeing stories of people who hit it big with Amazon. Before that, it was Apple. And before that, it was Microsoft.
And don’t even get me started on the whole GameStop saga…
It’s not that I’m jealous (or maybe I am a little bit, who am I kidding). My problem with these stories is that it gives people a warped view of how you actually build wealth. We’re a society that wants to get everything as soon as we can, often without having to do much work. These stories of Teslanaires and Bitcoin millionaires reinforce this fact, giving the impression that getting rich quickly really is possible if you’re simply clever or smart enough to bet on the right stocks.
Worse yet, these stories of Teslanaires and Bitcoin millionaires teach people the wrong lessons about investing. If anything, they may be harmful. People start to think that investing is about picking winning stocks and hitting home runs. I know when I was younger, that’s what I thought investing was all about.
But that’s not what successful investing is. Like most things in life, investing (and building wealth) comes down to two things – time and consistency. It’s small, consistent actions – perhaps imperceptible at first – that lead to big things over time.
All this is to say that investing isn’t about “playing” the stock market and picking the next Tesla or Amazon or Bitcoin. It’s about grinding it out, day-in and day-out, for years and years.
Learning The Wrong Investing Lessons
I’ve never believed in getting rich quickly. Indeed, I don’t believe anything in life comes quickly. To me, anything worth doing requires putting in the work. It’s all about slow and steady as we work to improve ourselves, our lives, and whatever else we’re trying to do.
The Teslanaires and Bitcoin millionaires didn’t do that. Instead, they hit it big with their one stock, skipping the slow and steady part entirely. It’s great that it worked out for them, but when we see these stories, we start to think that maybe we can do that too.
This warped view of what investing is about isn’t a good thing. Investing is more accessible than it has ever been, and that means we’re in a place where a lot of people can start investing, whether they know what they’re doing or not. Apps like Robinhood and M1 Finance make it so you can buy and sell stocks for free. Robinhood’s app makes investing seem like a game even. With how accessible investing is now, giving people the idea that they too can become millionaires overnight if they just pick the right stocks is not, in my opinion, a healthy thing to promote.
Let’s face it – this is really gambling. You might argue that it’s some sort of educated prediction, but in the end, it’s still a guess. No one can know what the future holds – and especially not what the short-term future holds. If you really could predict how any stock would move, then you could become one of the richest people in the world overnight if you wanted to.
In reality, the Teslanaires and Bitcoin millionaires got lucky (or have been lucky so far). Real investing though – that isn’t about luck. It’s about keeping at it, slow and steady.
Wealth Doesn’t Happen Overnight
Nothing happens overnight. When you see any overnight success, rarely is it actually an overnight success. Sports players may have natural athletic abilities that you and I don’t have. But they don’t reach the highest levels of their sport without putting in the time and the work over the long term.
The same is true with building wealth. Compound interest is one of the great mathematical wonders of the world. But there’s an interesting thing about compound interest – it’s not overnight. It takes time – and a lot of it – before compounding really does something.
And yes, you can win the lottery and become rich overnight. Just like you can pick a winning stock. Or just like you can bet it all on black and hit it big.
The odds just aren’t in your favor to do that. But slow and steady, staying consistent, working day-in and day out. The odds aren’t just in your favor if you take that path. They’re almost guaranteed to be in your favor.
Investing Doesn’t Have To Be Hard
Investing can often seem hard when you think that it’s about doing research and picking winning stocks. People who do this as their full-time job can’t consistently pull this off. If someone who does this as their job can’t pull this off consistently, how can someone picking stocks on the side expect to do it?
So what is investing really about? It’s about picking reasonable investments, sticking with it no matter what, and investing regularly forever. You want a portfolio that makes it more likely than not that you’ll reach your goals. And you don’t tinker with your investments unless you have a good, well thought out reason to do so (and chasing returns usually isn’t a good reason).
Passive index funds are the way most experts would tell you to go. Pick a reasonable allocation of index funds that you’re comfortable with, keep things low cost, and just keep putting money into them every day, week, month – whatever works for you.
You’ll be amazed at what regular consistent amounts can do over the long-term. You may not believe it, but investing $30 per day in well-diversified index funds is likely enough to make you a millionaire over the long-term.
There’s no one right way to invest. But there are a lot of wrong ways to invest. Approaching investing with the mindset that you’ll hit it big if you can just find the right investment is, in my view, the wrong way to invest. That’s not to say it’s impossible to hit it big with something, but if you pull this off, it’s more likely luck than it was skill.
If you’re looking for information on how to start investing, here’s another post I wrote: How To Start Investing: Simple Investing Strategies And Tools Anyone Can Use.
Kevin is an attorney and the blogger behind Financial Panther, a blog about personal finance, travel hacking, and side hustling using the sharing economy. He paid off $87,000 worth of student loans in just 2.5 years by choosing not to live like a big shot lawyer.
Kevin is passionate about earning money using the sharing economy and you can see all the ways he makes extra income every month in his side hustle reports.
Kevin is also big on using the latest fintech apps to improve his finances. Some of Kevin's favorite fintech apps include:
- Personal Capital. One of best free apps you can use to monitor your portfolio and track your net worth. This is one of the apps Kevin uses to track his financial accounts.
- SoFi Money. A really good checking account with absolutely no fees. You'll get a $50 welcome bonus if you open an account and fund it with at least $500.
- M1 Finance. This is a great robo-advisor that has no fees and allows you to create a customized portfolio based on your risk tolerance. You also get $10 for opening an account.
Feel free to send Kevin a message here.
“Like most things in life, investing (and building wealth) comes down to two things – time and consistency. It’s small, consistent actions – perhaps imperceptible at first – that lead to big things over time.” Perfectly stated.
Yep! Thanks!
I don’t disagree with your main sentiment which appears to be that investing in passive index funds at regular intervals is the most successful strategy to build wealth. However, the companies you mention is proof that it isn’t the only way. I know that many rank and file employees at tech companies have seen their net worth explode upon an IPO. They were given shares or stock options or held shares in their 401k of their employer’s stock. For awhile some prospective employees negotiated harder for stock options than salary. Having employees hold shares of their employers’ stock is considered good by most companies. It aligns the worker’s job tasks to the companies success (as interpreted by the stock market).
You don’t come out and say it but you allude to the rapid increase in Tesla or Bitcoin essentially being a bubble. Interestingly, Robin Hood has been accused of being the platform where many of the “investors” have artificially inflated the price of Game Stop. I think the problem is unsophisticated investors are being encouraged by platforms like Robin Hood and social media to engage in highly speculative trading which is possibly being orchestrated by larger investors looking to manipulate the market. I think some investors exacerbate the problem by trumpeting their stock market gains. I read an article about someone who made a killing in Game Stop stocks going to a Game Stop store and handing out $100 bills to the employees to “share the wealth.” Game Stop is notorious for treating their employees badly. Their average pay is less than Walmart retail workers. They are overworked, underpaid and during the pandemic, forcibly unemployed in some places.
I think the last several years have shown that there is no shortage of ignorance, undeserved success, crass & vulgar (possibly criminal) behavior, mob mentality, undisciplined behavior, resentment & frustration in the US. Is it any surprise that those characteristics would emerge in the investment community?
I’m not sure if I mean to say it’s a bubble, so much as I mean that no one actually knows how any particular stock is going to do, no matter what they might say. At least not consistently. My issue is that these sorts of winners give people the impression that this is what investing is about – picking stock winners. Maybe some people can get lucky and pull it off. But most won’t.
Like most things in life – consistency and time are what matters. I think it’s a good life lesson for anyone.
My son’s college roommate and my son graduated the same year. My son worked as an engineer for six or seven years and then went to medical school. He’s a radiation oncologist now married to another doctor. And they make a good income that will really jump up when he completes his residency. But he will probably never approach the wealth his former roommate has. He moved to California and was hired at a nondescript start up company and has been there ever since. I had never heard of them, just another funny named long shot tech venture. They are called Zoom, maybe you’ve heard of them? Four years of medical school, four years of residency versus magically getting hired by the next big thing. Go figure.
That’s great. The big difference with that – taking chances on careers and jobs while you’re young is something I support. You have your whole life to work, so take your chances when you’re young.
Investing and wealth building is something else entirely, in my opinion.
I agree, it’s apples and oranges. I’m happy for the kid. I just thought it was a cool story.
I’m with you. Like you said, it sets a dangerous precedent. I’m willing to maybe give a pass to the folks with the foresight to see the potential of Microsoft, Apple, etc, by researching and understanding the companies. If someone is going to pick stocks (like you said, not recommended for most of us normal people), it should be based on fundamentals like future earnings expectations, not hype. And this Game Stop stuff is even more dangerous, because we’re talking about companies that are not doing well at all! That’s pure gambling, and I’m afraid a lot of people are going to learn some dangerous lessons that are going to cause a lot of pain.
Though I do believe in investing a small portion of your money into moonshot bets like bitcoin and Tesla, I completely see that the buy and hold strategy is THE strategy to employ when investing for success.
Very few people have lost by buying and holding.
You’re completely right about how people’s overnight success stories with one stock portray a warped idea about how wealth is built. While the conventional way of building wealth is to save, invest and earn more to fuel your investing, we can’t ignore the fact that many people have just built their wealth on taking tremendous risks or just sheer luck.
Unfortunately, most people don’t care about the reasons behind what makes a stock move, the actual fundamentals, the future outlook for a company based on social and technological factors, and its current way of doing business. That’s because many are not just inexperienced but are constantly being fed the “get it now ” culture.
At the same time, the proponents of this culture in investing are people who either just want to sell a product or don’t give them the full story. All we can do is keep putting out good financial education to make people more aware
I think you need to think of Teslanaires as people that used part of their wealth to open a new business. Think McDonald’s franchises in the 50’s.
We saw the opportunity, took a portion of our wealth and invested in Tesla with complete conviction in the business. I first bought Tesla in 2015 with a reasonable portion of my wealth. If I lost it all I would still survive. Have owned very few individual stocks in my life time but this was one that clearly was going to break out if you took time to really understand the business. Having worked for a major auto company and understanding how electric cars would change the industry helped immensely.
Just like a small business, we followed our investment closely, understood the potential and won big time.
Nothing wrong with that.