Stock Picking is Dumb, Buy and Hold Index Funds

Best Investment Advice You'll Ever Get: "The stock-picking mystique is so deeply entrenched in our financial culture that it feels like heresy to suggest that it is, on balance, dumb. The facts are clear, however. For the vast majority of investors—including professionals—stock-picking efforts waste both money and time."

Solution: Buy and hold low-cost (sometimes as low as 1/10 of 1%) stock index funds. After taxes and after expenses, index funds usually outperform more than 97% of actively managed mutual funds.

Read more in Slate.