How much time to research investing?

Another way, rarely talked about directly, in which time and investing interact, is simply how much time investors put into their investing.

A large number of the investing books I've read advise readers to continue their education, to stay up on the state of the national and world economy, the leading indicators, to keep reading more and more books on investing, to frequent online investing forums, to read the blogs, the sites and on and on.

If you had the time, you could make learning about investing and the current state of the markets a fulltime job. Heck, it could occupy you 24/7.

If you spare all your time reading annual reports, yet another book about Japanese candlesticks technical analysis and on and on, will you make more money than someone who simply sends a portion of every paycheck into an S & P 500 index fund?

Chances are, you'll make less, because you might feel obligated to actually act on some of the information you're reading, and that will reduce your investing total yield.

And even if you get a little return, long-term, I have to step back and apply a tool of economics -- opportunity cost.

Maybe you would make even more money if you took all that time and energy and money (books and software cost money) you're spending on your investment research, and applied it to a part time business you'd make even more money. Or even if you just worked a part time job instead, you'd probably make more money, which you could then also throw into that S&P 500 Index fund and so make even more money.




investing research
investing research