Staying Power

You'd have made 7.4% a year in the average stock fund over the past 10 years, with a buy-and-hold strategy. However, investors actually earned only 5.9%: 20% less. That shortfall occurred in part because many investors kept popping in and out of the market, trying to anticipate swings. The moral here is to stay calm and stay put.

NOTE: Those are the figures for stock funds, but the message is the same for individual stocks, where steady investors do much better than those who try to time the market.

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