my point is that, once you accept that you can't beat the professionals, there is a very limited set of investments that make sense for most people. you can get

my point is that, once you accept that you can't beat the professionals, there is a very limited set of investments that make sense for most people. you can get optimal returns without understanding much about how the instruments actually work. there are some hard decisions to make along the way, but they depend more on self-knowledge (what's the minimal lifestyle I can accept? how much risk can I tolerate?) than a technical understanding of investment vehicles.