A decision to invest in Microsoft needs to be compared against the opportunity cost: investing in an unbiased sample of companies (you can invest in the Russel

A decision to invest in Microsoft needs to be compared against the opportunity cost: investing in an unbiased sample of companies (you can invest in the Russel 2000 if you want), for much less risk. Taking a job to work at McDonalds is a bad decision when the alternative (picking a random job available to you, essentially) pays more. Even if you "get paid" while working at McDonalds, it wasn't a worthwhile decision. (By the way, stocks are absolutely compared against the average market to see if they are a worthwhile decision. Why do you want to invest in an underperformer when you can invest randomly and do better? It's like testing a drug against a placebo.)