Many people read books written by stock trading gurus, saying they started with only $5,000 to $50,000, buying stocks like Apple, Microsoft, McDonald's, and Costco, and made hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in just a few years. Suddenly, they feel confident again and plan to use $5,000 to play with stocks like Apple, Tesla, and Google. This is a classic case of "carving the boat to find the sword." Their $5,000 to $50,000 was in 1963, 1975, 1984, or 1990, while yours is in 2025. They bought stocks priced at a few dollars or tens of dollars, while you buy stocks priced at hundreds of dollars. They held for 2-5 years during a continuous explosive bull market. You buy into a bear market and comfort yourself with "value investing," refusing to cut losses, and lacking funds to average down, becoming a naive investor who can only wait... $Tesla(TSLA.US)$NASDAQ Composite Index(.IXIC.US)$SPDR S&P 500(SPY.US)$Dow Jones Industrial Average(.DJI.US)