You seem to be indicating that the stock market is worse than or equal to playing the lotto. This could be quite true for many people. When I was a buy and ho

You seem to be indicating that the stock market is worse than or equal to playing the lotto. This could be quite true for many people. When I was a buy and hold investor, I'd calculate my expected return before buying the stock. You can actually calculate the percentage annual return you'll get from the stock before you buy it. Sure there's some risk, but you also can discount that risk. IF the risk discounted price you need to get the return you desire is higher than or equal to the current stock price, you buy the stock. My results from that were pretty eye opening-- every single stock where I followed that discipline, returned more than I expected over the period I held it (and I was holding them for the long term- 5 years or more.) Of course I've also lost money by buying hot companies, or failing to exercise the discipline to limit what I was doing to mathematically rewarding choices. I'll play poker, but never with more than $20 at risk. I've lost less than $5[1] my entire life in casinos because the games are not interesting because the returns are negative. I've never played the lotto. I never take a position that does not have a risk adjusted positive return. Maybe that takes more discipline than other people want to put into it... That's fine. I certainly can understand the difficulty of dealing with emotions... even if the numbers are right, how you feel about your position is often influenced by a variety of factors. Many people who go into the markets react based on how they feel, and so maybe it isn't a good choice to them. But I'm not a gambler. (If I was, I'd play poker more for higher stakes-- I love it-- and even that's a game of skill... or I'd have at least gambled in some of my many trips to las vegas. I love las vegas, but have never gambled there[1]. I think common stock is one way for people to have a better life, with not that much effort, and not even that much discipline. I think the financial industry makes all its money by convincing people that its too difficult and that it would just be easier to hand it over to them.... [1] I have on several occasions fed $1-$2 into a slot machine, and gotten several alcoholic drinks from the cocktail waitresses, who I tend to tip well. I'm not counting theses in my losses because the value of the drinks exceeds what I "lost", and even if I did the total is probably around $20 or so. On another occasion my partner put $1 into a penny slot machine, but on the 20th pull, won $30 and immediately cashed out. That same occasion I spent a dollar on video poker, was up to $5, down to $0.50, got back up to exactly $1 and cashed out. Most of the $5 is the $0.25 I traditionally lose when traveling thru the Las Vegeas airport where I do a single slot pull each time.