Hey! I'm an investor from Portugal. My goal is to achieve financial freedom throught investing in/trading stocks, ETFs and crypto. Growth and dividends.
"Index investing won't make you rich."
An annoyed reader sent me this, so I ran the numbers on the greatest investors in history vs the average person.
If you started with $10,000 today, how long would it take to hit $1 Million?
The results are a reality check:
1. Jim Simons:
Jim Simons was the GOAT of trading. His algorithms achieved ~66% annual returns. If you had his god-tier ability it would still take you 10 years to turn $10k into $1M.
2. Warren Buffett:
Buffett is the master of long-term value. His track record sits around 20% annually. If you invested like Buffett, it would take you 25 years to hit $1M.
3. The S&P 500:
The market historically returns about 10%.
If you just "Index and Chill" – It takes 48 years.
Here's the hard truth: You’re no Jim Simons. You aren't Warren Buffett. Neither am I.
When we see that "48 years" number, we panic.
We feel like we are falling behind. So we try to hack the math.
The temptation of going all-in on individual stock picks and volatile trades like crypto comes from trying to compress 48 years of returns into 12 months. But we misunderstand the mechanics of the game.
Studies show that only 4% of stocks from 1926-2016 accounted for all the wealth creation in the market. Trying to pick the next winning stock from that 4% is like trying to hit the lottery. So how did the legends do it?
Jim Simons had an advantage: A team of PhDs and the world’s most advanced algorithms.
Warren Buffett had an advantage: Billions in insurance float and a golden reputation that gave him access to deals you will never see.
You cannot beat them at their game. But you don't have to!
You don't have to beat the market to get rich. You just have to stay in it. Simons solved complex equations. Buffett valued complex businesses. Your job is infinitely simpler: You just have to show up.
The mechanics of wealth for us aren't about outperformance. They're about habit.
But does that mean you never take risks?
I wrote a full breakdown called "Can you get rich by index investing?" that dives deep into the "Survivor Bias" trap and the exact strategy I use to balance my moonshots with my indexing approach.
Subscribe to my newsletter so you don't miss it. The link is in my bio.
It's time for more Ethereum community leaders to directly bullpost ETH the asset, like Sandeep did here.
Any project winning on Ethereum is, de facto, run by an eth community leader.
For example, Tether and Circle mint more USDT and USDC on the eth L1 than on any other chain. @paoloardoino and @jerallaire are eth community leaders.
Tether and Circle benefit greatly from running their businesses on the eth L1. The L1 has the largest onchain economy by far (providing the best distribution for Tether and Circle) and is the most decentralized L1 by far (delivering the strongest property rights and lowest risk for Tether and Circle). A higher ETH price causes eth's onchain economy to grow faster, directly boosting Tether and Circle's addressable market. Eg. who borrows the most USDT and USDC? ETH holders.
We should ask Paolo and Jeremy to bullpost ETH loudly and often, both personally from their accounts and in terms of their teams promoting ETH to the broader public, media, industry groups, etc.
We should ask the same of Coinbase's @brian_armstrong - he's bet the future of his company on ethereum.
Anybody winning on ethereum should be bullposting ETH loudly and often. Sink or swim together.
The stronger ETH is, the more it helps Ethereum grow, and that means the world's largest and most decentralized onchain economy gets even larger faster - which is rocket fuel to grow the businesses run by these leaders.