Or taking a different view that concurs with yours: investing in index funds or broad ETFs lets me match or beat most long-term investors with nearly zero effort. There's no need for me to waste my time reading "financial news" or developing super fancy HFT algorithms like some posters here have done. I just need to buy those index funds at my desired asset allocation and I'm good to go. Repeat until retirement. Very simple.

Granted, I do complicate things a little by insisting that I never sell anything I buy, not even for rebalancing, until retirement (otherwise I wouldn't be buying and holding in my eyes). However, I get around that by constantly rebalancing with new money [1].

Honestly, I find it rather jarring that as someone who usually frequents /r/personalfinance and Bogleheads, I see lots of investing suggestions on HN that do not involve indexing.

[1]: http://optimalrebalancing.tk/

I never really understood the "rebalancing" thing. It requires selling your winners. One thing about winners - they tend to keep winning!

Some people call it "locking in your gains". I call it "minimizing your returns".

That’s weird - I call it “letting it ride” and “never leaving a hot table.”

Gambling is a word used to describe anything beyond your own acceptable risk tolerance.

My definition is more mathematical:

gambling - where the odds are against you

investing - where the odds are in your favor