Messing Up the Closest Thing to a Sure Thing in the Stock Market

Jason Zweig · 24 Aug 2024

Jason Zweig did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Buying and holding a handful of index funds for decades outperforms most people who trade to beat the market, including most professionals.
Mental modelPlay long games

Their wordsIf you buy a handful of index funds, sit on them for decades and never do another thing, you're likely to outperform nearly everyone who tries to beat the market by trading-including most professionals.

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The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.