14 Personal Finance Facts and Myths: Do You Know the Difference?

PICKING STOCKS IS A GOOD APPROACH TO SAVING FOR RETIREMENT.

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As a general rule, most people shouldn’t try to pick individual stocks to fund their retirement, says Mannes. “Much research has shown that even experts have a tough time beating the market consistently year after year. The percentage of investment professionals who beat the market gets smaller and smaller as the years go by,” he says. “If experts have a tough time doing it and they’re working on it 12 hours a day, five days a week, with lots of computing power and research assistants, then it’s not a good idea for you.” It’s a far better idea to put your money in index funds, balanced funds, or a target-retirement-date fund.