Discover the tips and strategies that will help you achieve your retirement goals.

I'm your host, James Canole, and this is the podcast dedicated to helping you retire well.

It all starts right here on Ready for Retirement. for retirement.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Ready for Retirement.

I'm your host, James Cannell.

And I hear quite a bit, people ask the question.

They'll say this.

They'll say, why shouldn't I just own the S&P 500 index? Now, the funny thing about this question is it's usually asked from one of two different perspectives, and depending on what perspective

you're asking it from, it can have very different answers. So if you want to learn the

fundamentals of building the right portfolio for your needs as well as how to learn to identify

common investment mistakes,

then this episode is for you. And as always, the notes and resources from today's episode are available at ready for retirement.co, but let's jump right in. So as I mentioned, this question of should I just

own the S&P 500 index, it's asked from two different perspectives and both address one side of the

question. Number one, the first

side is they're really just asking, should I own index funds? Meaning should I try to invest in

things that look to outperform the market? Or should I simply own an index who try to capture

the market and the returns that it will provide? Well, this one's pretty straightforward. And all

you have to do is look at the data. And what the data says is going back to 2000, and the source for this is dimensional fund advisors, if you look at all the stock funds starting

in 2000 that were actively managed, mean they didn't just invest in the market and let the market

work for them. They actively tried to outperform the market. The past 20 years of those funds,

only 41% have even stayed in business, mean they've survived.

The other almost 60% of them, they're not even in existence anymore.

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