--- title: Why You Shouldn't Buy Individual Stocks | TIME description: We just aren't that good at picking what to invest in. We do better when we invest broadly. canonical: https://time.com/video/BeICvvKo/ og:title: Why You Shouldn't Buy Individual Stocks og:description: We just aren't that good at picking what to invest in. We do better when we invest broadly. og:url: https://time.com/video/BeICvvKo/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/BeICvvKo/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why You Shouldn't Buy Individual Stocks twitter:description: We just aren't that good at picking what to invest in. We do better when we invest broadly. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/BeICvvKo/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Why You Shouldn't Buy Individual Stocks > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Why You Shouldn't Buy Individual Stocks [Watch (HLS stream): Why You Shouldn't Buy Individual Stocks](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/BeICvvKo.m3u8) (2:41)  _Published 2016-04-26. We just aren't that good at picking what to invest in. We do better when we invest broadly._ --- Jul 27, 2023 7:58 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Twitter Shouldn't Pick Your Stocks: Here's Why Money](/video/GEJQ9J4p/) ### Twitter Shouldn't Pick Your Stocks: Here's Why Money [Why You Should, and Shouldn't, Buy the New iPhone 7](/video/ajoG8XzK/) ### Why You Should, and Shouldn't, Buy the New iPhone 7 [Kids Aren't Alright](/video/VkFxE2KI/) ### Kids Aren't Alright --- ## Transcript I'm here with Harold Pollack, he is co- author of The Index Card, Why Personal FInance Doesn't Have to be Complicated. Now one thing you say in your book is people should not be buying and selling individual stocks. Now I see Kramer on the TV, it looks really fun and exciting What's wrong with that? Hey if you want fun and exciting, you can play fantasy baseball. There's lots of ways to have the thrill of speculation that doesn't put your own money at risk. The data that are out there about individual stock picking are so clear. That the average investor, we are just so bad at that. And it's not just sort of the frantic day traders. It's really everybody. There are studies that suggest that the stocks that we sell out perform the stocks that we buy. There's just a number of ways that we chase after shiny objects and make bad choices when we try to pursue individual stocks. We also waste a lot of time. You know, I should be spending that time and brain power and emotional energy on being good at day job, at being good with my kids and the people close to me in my life. At one level it's very humbling and it kind of boosts your ego you know I'm unlikely to have picked Apple before it, you know I'm not Warren Buffet, at another level it's such a relief that I don't have to do any of that. I can buy cheap index funds and that frees up so much of my time and attention to do things that are more important in my life. I don't have to have a second job as a financial professional. So I just want to follow up. The alternative you say buy cheap index funds. Mm- hm. Explain that alternative ther . >> So we've really known for the past 20, 25 years that the best thing to do for the bulk of your savings and investing is your buy a cheap fund that just tries to truck a market and the fees on these index funds are typically 0. 1 %, 0. 2 % Not much more than that and they don't have to hire a lot of fancy financial professionals who are trying to pick winning stocks and things like that. They just track the S & P 500 or some other broad market index. And you just put in, you put your money in there and you leave it alone. Major companies all have these index funds and They just out- perform just about everything else. There was one study that looked at 2, 800 funds, actively managed funds, and they found that two of them over an extended period of time were out- competing their market index. So there's just overwhelming evidence that this is the best way to You have to save for your retirement. It's great. Thanks a lot I appreciate it. Thank you. [ MUSIC ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Why You Shouldn't Buy Individual Stocks","description":"We just aren't that good at picking what to invest in. 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