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I bought Apple around 2002 for $18 a share, and in keeping with my investment strategy, sold when it doubled. Of course had I kept it it would be worth much more today, plus there were a few stock splits in the mean time, but you can't cherry pick when you can't predict the future. You could have bought Harley-Davidson in 1984 during the buyout and IPO (stock split I forget how many times but I know that the last time I did the math, $10,000 of HD in 1984 was worth $250,000 and that was during the 90's. Apple was as low as $13 only nine years ago. It's not like people didn't have enough chances to buy in. But, in the long term, investing in a basket of reasonably well run companies should give you an average return of about 10% a year. That would include times when the portfolio went down as well as up. In market speak, "long term" is not three years, it's thirty. Investing is easy, and investing when you're young is a no-brainer, but no-one does it. If you put $100 a month for the three years from 18 to 21 and then never saved a dime again, you will have $460,000 when you turn 65 at the average return of an Index Fund which is a buy-and-forget stock. In other words, you don't have to have a crystal ball to profit from investment; that return would be with no Apple or Alphabet or name-your-market-darling well timed buy and sell in your portfolio. You always hear from us old farts that "I wish I knew then what I know now", and it's isn't all about how to get laid. And it doesn't mean who we tell, or how often, kids won't listen. I get it ... I didn't either. But I wish I had. I didn't "get it" until I was 40, and that means I would have to invest $300 a month for 25 years to equal what I could have had if I put away that $3600 when I was a kid. I could have afforded it too. Apple split 4 times, but the first two required you were an early buyer (1987 2 for 1 and 2000 2 for 1). The next split was a 2 for 1 in 2005 (100 shares became 200 shares) and the whopping 7 for 1 in 2014 (100 shares became 700 shares). Had you been in on all of them (and a shrewd investor wouldn't have been as the value had some nasty lows over those years) and bought a board lot (100 shares) at the beginning you would have about $1.1 million today; if you just bought before 2005 you would have 1400 shares today at $114 a share (or so), so ... $160,000 more or less. But I have to say that when I did buy Apple everyone told me I was a fool, and when I sold at a 100% profit, everyone told me I was lucky to get out. You need a thick skin to win with individual picks, but an ETF is easy ... when the NYSE or TSE goes up, you profit along with it. Easy; the rate of return is about 10% a year over the last 100 years. Even if you bought the day before Black Friday of 1929 or the crash of 2008 you would still average that return over the long term.
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