Stock market investing feels like tough going right now.
The market lurches down one day on the prospect of higher interest rates.
The next day it jumps higher on the prospect of interest rates not rising as much, or as quickly as previously expected.
And the next day it goes precisely nowhere, like watching paint dry.
Meanwhile, we have the ever-present risk of the next stock market crash. Depending on the day, and the author, it could be coming any day from now till the end of 2018.
I don't know whether it's this age of the 24-hour news cycle…
The internet giving every connected person in the world a voice…
The dire global political environment…
The long-running bull market, especially in the US, and that the last stock market correction was in January 2016…
The scars of the GFC…
Hourly stories about a house price bubble…
Or just that we're naturally attracted to predictions of doom and gloom…
But right now, seemingly more than ever, it feels to me like investors are fearful of a full blown stock market crash.
No-one likes to lose money. The pain of losing money is three times greater than the pleasure of making money.
No-one wants to buy shares just before the market crashes.
Everyone thinks they'll buy up big after the stock market crashes.
This is how you get rich in the stock market
Here's the somewhat painful truth…
Like every form of investing — whether that be property, shares or even just saving money — you get rich slowly.
So the next time you read about some lunatic predicting gold will go to $5,000…
That oil will hit $100…
The only way for medical marijuana stocks is up…
Or that you can make a motza trading these CryptoCurrency things, the latest fad I'm reading about…
Know that there's no get-rich-quick scheme that actually works.
Warren Buffett, the world's richest stock market investor, made 99% of his wealth after his 50th birthday.
He didn't suddenly hit the jackpot on some long odds bet.
He didn't inherit money.
Boil it all down, and his wealth can be attributed to these two things…
1) Buying great companies at fair prices.
2) Letting time, and the power of compounding returns, work their wonders.
Buffett doesn't fear stock market crashes.
Buffett doesn't worry about buying something just before a potential stock market crash.
In fact, right now, including debt, he's bidding up to $US18 billion to buy a Texas-based electricity company. Do you think he'd be making one of his largest ever acquisitions if he thought there was a stock market crash just around the corner?
Earlier this year, Buffett told CNBC reporter Becky Quick that the idea of staying out of the stock market because you think you know when to enter it "is a terrible mistake."
In the same interview, he also said the stock market was "not in a bubble territory or anything of the sort."
If you earn an average of 10% per annum on your investments, you'll double your money around every seven years. If you could earn 15% — about the top end of any realistic expectations — you'd double your money around every five years.
Looks attractive, right?
A portfolio of $200,000 could be worth $400,000 by 2024.
Until greed messes with you.
Who wants to wait until 2024?
Who wants to wait when there are fortunes to be made on Ethereum. Or on some penny share mining stock that's running hot in chat forums across the internet.
To borrow a quote from Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner…
"Stocks always go down faster than they go up, but they always go up more than they go down."
The whole get rich slowly message doesn't sell many subscriptions to our flagship stock picking service Motley Fool Share Advisor…
Nor does "business focused investing."
And nor does "don't worry about stock market crashes."
But they work.
They've worked for over a century. They'll work for centuries more. They've made Warren Buffett billions.
My guess is they'll work for you too.
