Honestly, the only reason people can't make money from stocks here is because of greed. I seriously don't get it..

Created at Oct 08, 2026 07:54:43 12.**.211.18 110 11 0

Getting restless whenever stocks drop even a little here... getting emotionally tossed around by daily fluctuations ㅠㅠ

Sigh... seeing things like this makes me feel sad.
Why do people ignore this easy path and choose to live life in such an exhausting and painful way? Tsk tsk.

I don't know what kind of annual return people here need to be satisfied and happy, but...
Sure, maybe if you get lucky, there's a year where you make a fortune once. But even Warren Buffett, praised globally as a stock master, has an annual return around 15%.
Generating this consistently every year is just that miraculous and difficult.

Yet, who are retail investors like us to get greedy and struggle to make more? Just mere retail investors with neither skill nor real insider information that only institutions know.

Just comfortably buy and accumulate ETFs.

For instance, even if you had blindly put 1 million into SOXX 10 years ago, done nothing, never opened your account, and just enjoyed life doing whatever you wanted, it would be 17 million as of today!!! It's 17 million. For reference, SOXX's average annual return over the past 10 years was 32%.

No matter how much you guys study, stare at stock charts every day, and try all kinds of tricks with day trading, you will never turn 1 million into 17 million in 10 years.

And ETFs are safe. At least compared to individual stocks.

I completely fail to understand why people ignore this easy method, get so greedy, and get restless staring at stock charts.

It's all greed.

Let go of your greed and buy and accumulate ETFs whenever you have spare cash.

If an annual return of 30% is still not enough to satisfy you, well, there's nothing anyone can do about that.

Tags ETF SOXX

Comments 11

135.**.198.138 Oct 08, 2026 07:58:40

Ten years ago, the tech market was in a huge boom, so I can understand it... but going forward, I kind of think it might be a bit range-bound...

99.**.114.62 Oct 08, 2026 07:58:20

It's not like you didn't look at it for 10 years, but rather you kept checking every now and then to see if semiconductors would keep going while holding onto them, right? You're really amazing. 10 years.... They said it would go up for the past five years, but before that, it was called a cyclical stock....

243.**.117.74 Oct 08, 2026 07:57:59

Aren't you special, really lol
Jealous of 1 Million 10 years ago

139.**.159.234 Oct 08, 2026 07:57:43

I know, but if you have a million, I don't think the phrase "ants like us" really fits, does it? People become moths to a flame because they want to hit the jackpot with a small amount of money.

23.**.84.30 Oct 08, 2026 07:57:18

I also started in 2020 and learned a lot after taking a loss and closing my positions in 2023. Now, I only auto-buy index funds no matter what.

104.**.233.243 Oct 08, 2026 07:56:51

I wish I could hit the like button a hundred times. But people blinded by greed will rush to individual stocks and leverage like moths to a flame again, believing that they are different.

It would be a relief if only beginners were blinded by greed. You know very well that's not the case.

164.**.176.226 Oct 08, 2026 07:56:26

How hard must it be if people say Wall Street would eagerly recruit you for making just a 20% annual return?

208.**.118.246 Oct 08, 2026 07:56:09

Don't be too hard on them. When you start investing in stocks late, you learn by taking some hits along the way anyway, right?

I contributed to my company's 401(k) for 20 years without ever thinking of investing on my own, but during COVID I started trading individual stocks. I made a lot of money, but then got greedy and suffered emotionally for two years during the bear market, haha.
So after going through all that, I came to realize my own style and personality. Even if it seems pathetic, actually trading stocks yourself helps you learn about your personality, so there's a good side to it, too. haha

I know you posted this with good intentions. Even if it seems frustrating, posts like this are actually a big help to beginners. haha

44.**.238.161 Oct 08, 2026 07:55:38

What the original poster said is completely right. In a bull market like this, with the index hitting all-time highs, sitting here looking at -50% because I bought some weird stock a few months ago is giving me a serious reality check. I'm such a terrible picker with cursed hands, so how could I ever beat the stock gurus? I'm going to liquidate all my individual stocks and just accumulate ETFs. Greedy as I was, I dragged this out for 7 long years trying to make up for my losses in one shot... and only now, still staring at my huge negative stock account, have I finally realized this lesson. If I had just mostly gathered ETFs 7 years ago, my account would have multiplied several times over by now without me even needing to look at it.

106.**.220.236 Oct 08, 2026 07:55:19

That's true. There are so many types of ETFs that you have to choose carefully, though; if you bought the ARK series during the pandemic and couldn't sell, you still wouldn't have any hope. So just sticking to proven ETFs (S&P 500, Semiconductors - SOXX, SMH, Nasdaq Tech - QQQ, VGT) is more than enough.

Right before the pandemic (February 18–20, 2020), I bought VGT and SMH at the peak, but got hit hard right away, so I couldn't sleep at night for a long time.
Still, I didn't sell and left them alone, and as of today, the $160k worth of VGT I bought is now $660k (275%), and the $35k worth of SMH is $286k (660%).

+ Actually, I had bought twice as much of those ETFs, but during the pandemic stock boom, I sold half to buy junk stocks and lost a lot. I learned a big lesson. However, while I cut my losses on most of those junk stocks I bought back then, BE survived and ended up hitting it big.

171.**.238.175 Oct 08, 2026 07:55:01

Empathy