(Excerpt from How I Invest My Money by Joshua Brown and Brian Portnoy, chapter by Ashby Daniels)
I believe the quest to squeak out a few extra basis points of return is a waste of time for the typical Main Street investor, myself included. Why? It’s not because I believe it can’t be done (it surely can), but because the quest for alpha is entirely out of my control and because it is entirely unnecessary for achieving our financial goals.
… Attempting to beat the market must also introduce the risk of underperforming the market as well. If we don’t need to beat the market to achieve our financial goals, what sense would it make to introduce the possibility of moving us further from our goals?