Transfer other people's investment values to you The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient. Warren Buffett Your choice: You and your advisor can try to outsmart the market with millions of traders and likely earn 3.79% a year or let their money flow to you over time and earn 11%. The analysis of real investors showed that the average advisor-investor earned just 3.79% a year while the stock market earned 11.06% over the last 30 years. DALBAR's QAIB Forget Wall Street hype. You can earn 11% by NOT letting advisors touch your money. 95% of active traders do NOT beat the market over time. The leading cause of bad returns is costs. Morningstar the rating firm found: "In every single time period and data point tested, low-cost funds beat high-cost funds." Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors of all time, has given us his formula. We must leave our assets alone. Riches come to those who do nothing but wait. All the things that our Wall Street advisor tells us to do are wrong: trading, timing, high fees, 'special situations, ' buy low, sell high, activity, 'next' Apple, 'future' Amazon, new 'trend, ' new tech, new bio, etc. All is marketing hype. My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest. Buffett says growth comes from compound interest. That is earnings from last period earning gains in this period. When you invest $250 a month for 33 years, $99,000 total, you do nothing to receive the other $901,000--$1,000,000 over time.