In this episode, Cody and Justin discuss one of the most heated investing arguments.

Should you hand-select the "best" companies, or invest in the total stock market?

Some topics include:

Individual stocks are often investors' first exposure to the stock market

The mental drag of stress from volatility

How individual stocks can scratch the itch

Setting non-negotiable limits

More certain path to FI vs the potential for a home run

Bad bets we've made on individual stocks

As part of this discussion, we compared several individual stocks against VTSAX.

VTSAX is an index fund Vanguard offers and tracks the total stock market.

List of stocks including present-day value and annualized return if you invested $1,000 on Aug 9, 2004, and reinvested dividends:

VTSAX

$5,807

9.19% average annual return

Intel

$1,623

2.45% average annual return

7th Market Cap

Abercrombie and Fitch

$4,679

8.02% average annual return

Couple of years after Hollister's launch

Apple

$396,562

34.85% average annual return

Released iPod Mini

If you bought on July 6, 1994 (Forrest Gump release date) -> $1.1M (26%)

Coca Cola

$6,007

9.37% average annual return

Released C2

General Electric

$1,243

1.09% average annual return

5th Market Cap

Wells Fargo

$2,627

4.95%

15th largest market cap

TI

$11,496

12.98% average annual return

Year TI-89 was released

Sony

$2,691

5.07% average annual return

PSP release date

Nokia

$730

-1.56% average annual return

9 phone releases

We cover all of this and more.

We hope you found value in the episode, if you did, subscribe, leave a review, and share with a friend!

Links from The Episode

Stoculator

YouTube Interview

https://youtu.be/0N4IlLBrYV0

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