Couldn’t beat the S&P 500 after 5 years

u/East-Macaroon-2861 · Reddit — r/wallstreetbets · August 17, 2026 at 00:35 · ⬆ 415 pts · 💬 145 comments  | View on Reddit ↗
AI Summary

Summary

  • Author admits that after five years of active stock research and emotional stress, his portfolio underperformed the S&P 500 by 2%.
  • Core thesis: passive index investing beats active stock picking for most retail investors.
  • Quality assessment: This is personal anecdote/noise, not well-researched DD; it offers little proprietary analysis but reinforces a classic Bogle-style passive investing argument.
Score 415
Comments 145
Upvote % 95%
Ideas
u/East-Macaroon-2861 Reddit r/wallstreetbets
Author’s 5-year active portfolio trailed S&P 500 by 2%. This underperformance implies a long-term passive S&P 500 index position would have captured better returns with less effort. Favor broad index ownership over discretionary stock picking. Past 5-year SPY returns may not repeat; active manager skill, tax-loss harvesting, or factor tilts can outperform.
SPY MED
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This Reddit post, published August 17, 2026, features u/East-Macaroon-2861 discussing SPY. 1 trade idea extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: u/East-Macaroon-2861  · Tickers: SPY