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Everyone is every moment trying to give you stock advice. I hear all the time carelessly great new stocks that I should just put a little money in – my friends tell me that they have the inside track, and that all I have to do is put a little in and I’ll get great returns.

That’s just not a good idea, however. Most of them that I have tried haven’t panned out – sometimes they do, but usually it’s the problem with trying to invest in individual stocks anyway: you’re not the only one with a hot tip. Information is rapidly priced into the markets these days – everyone who trades for a living likely as yet knows through whatever you know. And if you don’t trade for a living, you just aren’t as on top of things. The vast majority of shares are owned by big financial institutions, who pay legions of people to keep track of every detail and to be on top of every news report. Even those professional stock pickers usually can’t do distinguished than the Dow or Standard and Poor’s index – it’s just very difficult to do, largely insomuch as individual stocks don’t have the kind of diversification benefits that a stock index fund does. This makes it extremely hard to “beat the market” – and your friend’s stock pick just isn’t likely to help you do that. They may be right on near upon what is going to happen, but everyone else is hereunto trying to make the same prediction. There’s a reason very few people get rich playing the markets.

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