31M and fully self taught. I've been reading up on investment for a couple years now ever since a significant salary bump that's made this feel possible. I've mostly just browsed reddit for opinions, which I admit is by no means the best economics education. I have a curiosity to learn but full disclosure I also go gloss eyed whenever reading/listening to anything that gets too far into the weeds. It was certainly not something I ever wanted to pay attention to while I was in school.
SO with that context out of the way, I've been thinking recently... why is it important to look at the performance history of a stock/etf/etc within the last 5 years if I'm also being told "If it's hot, you're already too late." The sentiments make me go crosseyed and I realize I don't know what I should be looking for. It's performed horribly? Why would I invest? It's done incredibly? I'm too late so don't bother.
I'm currently invested entirely in XEQT because it fits my risk appetite and I appreciate the simple all in one solution it provides... As you can probably tell, I barely know what I'm doing. Out of sheer curiosity... I'd love to get better at actually knowing what I'm looking at/for when examining the last 5 years of performance history.
So what should I be looking for? What am I looking at? Do you have any ELI5 books/videos/podcasts you'd recommend?
Thanks