A few days ago, a friend asked me if I had any spare money and wanted to invest, but when he looked at those candlestick charts, he was overwhelmed and asked if there was any worry free way. I just wanted to say one word, buy. But this answer was too perfunctory, so I talked to him for a long time. Today, I will organize the content of our conversation. The S&P 500 is actually quite simple to say. It is a collection of the top 500 companies in the US stock market, including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Tesla, and most of the major American companies you can name are included. Buying it is equivalent to buying half of the world's most profitable economy at once. But that's not what I want to say. What I want to say is a fact that many people are unwilling to face. If you look at the data of the S&P 500 over the past fifty years, the annualized return rate is about 10%. This number may seem insignificant, but when you calculate it, if you start investing 2000 yuan per month into the S&P 500 at the age of 22 after graduating from college, by the time you retire at the age of 62, this money can probably become around 12 million yuan. Of course, this is an ideal situation where there will be fluctuations, bear markets, and various black swan events. But the trend is there, clearly stated. I started investing in the S&P 500 in 2017 and was also approached by a friend who specializes in quantitative trading. He told me a sentence that I remember until now, he said, 'You don't need to be smarter than the market, you just need to be patient than time.'. This sounds a bit like chicken soup, but if you think about it carefully, it's really true. When the pandemic broke out in March 2020, the US stock market experienced consecutive circuit breakers, causing my account to temporarily lose money. To be honest, I was feeling anxious at that time, and I had to do half a day of psychological construction every day when I opened my account and glanced at it. But my friend said another thing to me, he said, 'You're not losing money now, you're buying at a discount.'. I didn't sell it, keep investing. Then you all know what happened afterwards, the Federal Reserve released water, and the US stock market experienced a V-shaped reversal, not only recovering its capital, but also making a lot of profits. This incident has had a particularly profound impact on me. It's not about how much money I made, but I suddenly realized that most people lose money in investments not because they chose the wrong target, but because they couldn't hold onto it. Human nature is like this, it wants to chase after when it rises and run when it falls. But the core logic of things like the S&P 500 is that the US economy will continue to rise in the long run. As long as you believe that the US economy will not collapse in the next thirty years, it will continue to rise. The fluctuation in the middle is just noise, not a signal. Of course, I'm not saying that the S&P 500 is risk-free. After the Internet foam burst in 2000, it took six years for the S&P 500 to return to its previous high. The 2008 financial crisis was even worse, with a drop of nearly 50%, and it took five years to recover. If you happen to need money at these two points in time, it's really awkward. So I have a very practical question, investing in S&P 500 money is best done with idle money that you won't need for ten or eight years. If it's money for buying a house next year and getting married the year after, don't throw it in, just deposit it in the bank or buy a money fund honestly. Another thing that I think is particularly important is not to choose the right time. I know many people think they can follow the rhythm and buy low and sell high. Let me tell you something unpleasant, even Buffett can't do this. Do you think you can? Buffett's original words were, 'The ability to predict rain doesn't make you a meteorologist.'. In human terms, if you guess correctly ten times, it's useless. If you guess incorrectly the eleventh time, you can throw back all the money you earned earlier. I recommend a simple method to my brother, which is quite foolish. After one idle money purchase, the rest is to deduct a fixed amount every month on the day of salary payment, regardless of market fluctuations or news reports, without any change. There is a saying for this method called 'average cost method', which essentially eliminates the issue of timing and stops playing with you. At this point, some people may ask, is the S&P 500 too expensive now, with such a high valuation? Will it be accepted when entering the market now? That's a good question, I've also been conflicted about it. But later I realized one thing, valuation is relative. You think it's expensive now, but looking back in five years, you may find it outrageously cheap. In 1999, people also thought that Internet stocks were outrageously expensive. But if you bought Amazon at that time and got it now, your return would be about Never mind, I won't say it anymore. I'm afraid you won't be able to handle it if I say it. I'm not persuading everyone to buy the S&P 500. Everyone's situation is different, their risk tolerance and funding arrangements are also different. I am just sharing an investment strategy that I believe is suitable for most ordinary people, which is to acknowledge that you do not have the ability to generate excess returns, and then choose the path with the highest certainty to walk slowly. This road is not sexy, it won't make you rich overnight, nor will it let you show off on your social media. But it is highly likely that you will have a considerable amount of wealth in 20-30 years and enjoy retirement life ahead of schedule, which is enough. When it comes to investing, slow is fast. I have been hammered countless times before I truly understand this sentence.