Jordan has $10,000 to invest. Click any company to read its full profile, then choose one to invest everything in.
Click a company card to read its full profile.
Phase 2 of 2
10 Years Later...
Jordan held that investment for a full decade. Here's what happened.
The Alternative: Total Market Index Fund
No picking. No guessing. Own a tiny slice of every company in the market.
$19,700
+97% over 10 years
Company
Industry
10-Year Return
$10,000 Became...
vs. Index
🎲 Even with expert advice, most picks lost to the index.
In this simulation, 7 out of 10 individual stocks underperformed the index fund. In the real stock market, research shows that roughly 80–90% of actively managed funds fail to beat a simple index fund over 10+ years — and those are professional fund managers with teams of analysts.
📰 The "expert" quotes were all real-sounding — and mostly wrong.
Every company had a credible endorsement, solid financials, and a confident CEO. That's the point: confident predictions are everywhere, and most don't pan out. DrivenAuto had a "Strong Buy" rating and $6.2 billion in patents — and went bankrupt. Groundwork Construction was boring and unglamorous — and crushed the market. The student who picked Groundwork didn't have better information. They got lucky.
📈 The index fund: boring, and usually right.
The index fund didn't try to pick winners. It owned everything — a tiny slice of every company. When some failed, others grew. Over 10 years, $10,000 became $19,700 — nearly doubling — without any guesswork. That's the power of diversification.