Is it easy to become a multi-millionaire investor?

Question

Is it correct that you must go to college, then post-grad for 4 years, and then you start working on wall street.

I would just like to know how hard it is to be an investor and make a lot of money (assuming you have the motivataion to become one).

P.S. I was thinking of reading a couple books by peter lynch, and warren buffett

Answer 1

of course it not easy or everyone would be doing it!!!

Answer 2

It is very easy to become a multi-millionaire investor--if you start out as a multi-billionaire investor.

Answer 3

No.

No...working on Wall Street (depending upon how you define that) depends on (1) connections, (2) experience, and (3) education...

In education, you will generally find that the number of years and degrees matters much less than the school attended and the honors achieved.  The better the school and the higher the achievement the easier it is to get the job you want.

Being an investor, however, requires no education, no experience, and zero skill...it only takes money.

In considering how easy it is, take a count of how many people with a net worth over $25 million (the super rich) got that way primarily (underline that word) by investing.  The number is a very, very small percent.  In fact,

Most people get rich by creating or running a successful small to mid-sized company.

Answer 4

I guess the simple answer is no.

If it were easy there would be thousands of Warren Buffets out there.  But there are not.

I certainly would suggest reading some books, that you said you were thinking of.  Get an idea for how others started down this road.

Clearly the more money there is to be made, the more competition there is to make it.

Answer 5

A college degree is WORTHLESS for investing.  You can learn more here on YA.  I say that while telling you not to trust 99.99% of what you read here.  Don't trust my either.  The books you mention are worth more that the formal education.

Answer 6

no or we would have more millionares

Answer 7

Actually, the simple answer is yes, but this depends on the definition of "multi-million".

Let's assume the definition means "more than 1 million". This is definitely possible even for someone of average income.

Don't believe me? Try it out for yourself! Check out this compound interest calculator (no I'm not affiliated with ING, it's just a really cool calculator):

http://www.ingdirect.ca/en/tools/calcs/S...

Input the following:

Initial investment = $1000

Savings goal = 0

Contribute $200 every month

40 years

10% interest rate (this is the average annual return of the S&P 500 market index, before inflation, if you want to factor in inflation use 7%).

Result: 1.3 million, 1.2 million of which is PURE interest!

If you keep everything the same but instead put away $500 a month, you'll have 3.2 million at the end of 40 years, 2.9 million of which is pure interest.

So clearly, you can become a multi millionaire but putting away a little bit of money every month into say, a low cost index fund (always do your reasearch before investng though!). Fiddle around with the numbers a bit and you'll see the potential.

In fact, this is what investment moguls like Warren Buffett recommend for the average investor: invest in a low cost index fund (that tracks one of the big indexes) and invest little bits of money consistently for the long term. This has been quoted in print, but you can read it online from Reuters news service here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/fundsFund...

The great thing about Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch, both of whom I have tremendous respect for, is that they are fundamentally good human beings. Warren Buffett still believes he can beat the market for his shareholders, but the best thing he could have ever done for the average person, I think, is tell them that THEY probably can't. I believe moguls like Lynch and Buffett know they are exceptions, that, for lack of a beter term, they are flukes.

Yes, there are other investors who can successfully beat the market, but you have to take taxes and comissions into account. Most of them end up doing it full time too. I have more or less shelved my ambitions towards becoming a portfolio manager simply because, as smart as I am, I know that the stock market is never something I will be able to consistently figure out, nor do I wish to spend what little time I have in my professional life trying to pursue, what seems to me, an exercise in futility. There are just too many variables that I cannot account for (the madness of the crowds, for example).

If however, you have aspirations towards this yourself, then college, university, all of that helps a great deal. See if your school offers anything in the way of portfolio management (ex: special programs or classes) and get involved in those. A co-op or internship program is also a great advantage.

Keep in mind a lot of the top guys are ridiculously over-paid for their performance, so you can't look at them and say that they made their millions/billions by strictly INVESTING. It may be in a lot of cases that their high salaries and stock opitions were wisely invested, but very few of them became rich (with the exception of Buffett perhaps) simply from playing the stock market alone.

Here's some furthur reading for you. The following books champion the "get rich slow" method which entails investing soundly for the long term and letting the magic of compound interest do the work for you. I have reviewed many of thse books on my website at http://www.btgnow.net

The Millionaire Next Door by Stanley and Danko

The Wealthy Barber by Dave Chilton

The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach

In addition here are some excellent investing books you should look into (all of which I have read in full):

A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel (explains the wisdom of index investing)

One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch

How Buffett Does It by James Pardoe

The Warren Buffett Way by Robert Hagstrom

Anything by John Bogel on the subject of mutual/index funds.

I have not read Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor, but his is the system that Warren Buffett follows (fundamental analysis).

For the writings of Buffett himself, you can find Buffett's letters to shareholders since 1977 here:

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters...

Good luck!