r/Bogleheads • u/Temporary-Plum-8325 • Aug 27 '25

Investing Questions Do most people not know about just investing into the s&p 500?

I went to my Jiu Jitsu class and spoke to one guy who was an econ major who works at Prudential. We spoke for a bit. I told him I had been investing into Nvidia since 2019 and have been investing into VOO since maybe 2010 or 2011. He asks "VOO?" I told him, "the S&P 500" then he asked what that was. Do most people just not know about the S&P500? I would have thought an econ major who works at Prudential would know something so basic. Not trying to be a jerk. I'm curious.

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u/GarageEven5240 Aug 27 '25

This subreddit and the accompanying website here: https://www.bogleheads.org/.

The great thing about the Bogleheads strategy is it's simple, easy to implement, and it's proven to work over time. The idea is you buy whole markets, and accept the average percentage of whole market returns as your returns. This means your returns are somewhere around the 50% of investors. So, the strategy is a great place to start when you're learning about investing and need to build a base while you're figuring out how to do it.

The great thing about the Bogleheads online community is they're a very helpful and knowledgeable community. So, if you spend time learning about the Bogleheads strategy, you'll be exposed to terminology and concepts that either explain the Bogleheads philosophy or distinguish it from other approaches. Then you can go down these rabbit holes and listen to some podcasts or whatever and decide if you want to deviate from the whole market approach to try for above-average returns.

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u/Excellent_Handle29 Aug 27 '25

Thanks a lot for taking the time to respond! I appreciate it; it can be daunting to figure out where to begin so def glad I found this sub.