Define investing success

One common -- make that, "near universal" -- mistake people make with investments is to clearly define what they mean by "making money."

See, there're hundreds of investment techniques and methods of various kinds, and things to invest your money in. And they all "make money." Even HYIP scams make money for somebody -- everything can and sometimes does make money in the short term.

After all, any given investment can only go up or down. Sometimes they're essentially sideways, but sooner or later they choose one direction or the other.

So the odds are you can make money whether you choose investments for value, technical analysis, tea leaves, Gann squares, the Elliott Wave, astrology, Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, growth, momentum, a gypsy medium, a crystal ball, dream analysis or any other nonsense. It also explains why so many investment newsletters stay in business. Some of their picks are winners and some readers put their money on those picks and are happy. So you should be careful about evaluating the records of anybody trying to sell you their stock picks or stock picking system or software.

But the real question is how much money, for how long, and for people actively buying and selling, how much of your gains is lost through transaction costs and paying capital gains taxes to the government.

That's why most people would be far better off to just put all their money into an S&P 500 index fund.

And in my opinion most people would be far better just putting all their money into investments that pay dividends or interest and holding on to them.

define investing success
define investing success