Since 2026, the seven giants of the U.S. stock market have all underperformed the Nasdaq 100: Nasdaq 100: +16.16% NVIDIA: +4.61% Tesla: -12.51% Google A: +15.15% Google C: +13.66% Apple: +13.75% Microsoft: -18.95% Amazon: +5.13% META: -11.55% In other words, if you randomly picked any of these seven companies this year, you’d still be worse off than simply buying QQQ. Why is this happening? Because the market is always changing. Last year, NVIDIA skyrocketed thanks to AI chips, but this year it might stagnate due to concerns over capital expenditures. Tesla was all about the robot story last year, but this year it’s more about sales and competition. Microsoft got hit this year due to slowing cloud business, and META was sold off because of the long ROI cycle for its AI investments. No matter how deeply you research, you can’t stop the market’s mood swings, macro interest rates, geopolitical conflicts, or the volatility caused by a CEO’s one-liner. For us ordinary folks, researching individual stocks comes at a high cost. You spend hours reading financial reports, listening to earnings calls, watching the market, and scrolling through news—burning your time and energy. For most people, this time could be better spent improving their main career, spending time with family, or learning new skills. Now let’s do the math: you spent hundreds of hours researching, bought one of the giants, and ended up underperforming the index. This isn’t investing—it’s paying a premium for anxiety. Why is the Nasdaq 100 so worry-free? Because it doesn’t care who the winner of the year is. It automatically adjusts for you: companies that perform well get a higher weight, while those that perform poorly naturally decline. Newcomers join, old kings leave. You don’t have to do anything, and you still own a basket of the world’s top tech companies. This is the essence of index investing: you’re not betting on a specific company—you’re betting on the concept of "technological progress" itself. Many people think buying an index isn’t "exciting enough" or doesn’t earn enough. But the data doesn’t lie. In the long run, 90% of active fund managers can’t beat the Nasdaq 100, and the percentage of retail investors who underperform the index is even higher. You think you’re picking stocks, but in reality, you’re paying tuition to the market. The ones who truly make big money are often not the smartest people, but those who admit they don’t know everything. The hardest part of investing isn’t picking the right stock—it’s holding on for the long term. And the Nasdaq 100 happens to take care of the hardest part—stock selection—for you. Sleeping is more important than watching the market.