Investing in SpaceX with Baillie Gifford US Growth Trust
People who start with nothing and manage to accumulate large sums of wealth usually share a few common characteristics. They don’t talk about how much money they have, they understand the notion of value for money, and they realize that most financial “advice” that’s given by mainstream pundits is a bunch of malarkey. It doesn’t take wealth to see that the finance industry is filled with rubbish because the numbers speak for themselves.
It’s Tough to Beat a Benchmark
If you want to invest in technology stocks, that’s easy enough. The simplest way is to buy an ETF that tracks the Nasdaq, like the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), and enjoy the returns of the Nasdaq minus a 0.20% expense ratio. The past performance of that single well-diversified investment vehicle is quite spectacular:
- QQQ 5-year return +222%
- QQQ 10-year return +471%
- QQQ 20-year return +596%
If instead, you decided to stock pick, you better have beaten the returns seen above by a wide margin because you took on a lot of additional risk by stock picking. Trying to beat a market benchmark is extremely tough to do over the long run, which is usually the time horizon most young investors have. When 95% of all professional active fund managers can’t beat their benchmarks, the odds are not in your favor.
Still, many investors, even self-directed investors, will find themselves gravitating towards active managers for any number of reasons. We’re presently holding four ETFs in our
