James Royal, Ph.D.
8 min read
The stock market can be a scary place. It can feel like inexperienced investors don’t stand a chance against high-powered traders, and well, there’s the constant up and down of stocks. So it’s not surprising that young American investors cited intimidation as one of the top reasons they didn’t pick the stock market as their top long-term investment over the next decade in Bankrate’s 2025 Long-Term Investment Survey.
Invest in Gold
In total, 21 percent of Americans say the stock market is not their top investment choice over the next decade or longer because they’re intimidated by it. Young Americans feel that intimidation even more: 29 percent of Gen Zers (ages 18–28) and 24 percent of millennials (ages 29–44) cited that reason. In contrast, just 14 percent of Gen Xers (ages 45–60) and 22 percent of baby boomers (ages 61–79) named intimidation as their top reason. In total, intimidation was the second-most popular reason, while too much volatility scored the top spot.
Unquestionably, the stock market can be scary, but individual investors have ways they can succeed — and in fact, they can end up beating more than 90 percent of investors, even the pros. It’s not about having tons of knowledge but rather the right strategy and a steady hand.
Here’s how to make the stock market less scary for individuals.
Get started: Match with an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals
Investing in the stock market can feel daunting because it’s not always clear how individuals can succeed. But investors have some notable advantages over powerful and well-informed Wall Street traders, and they just need to focus on where they have these key strategic advantages.
One of the first things to know about the stock market is that a variety of players are all playing their own games and using the market for different purposes. A few of these players include:
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Investors: Investors invest for longer periods of time, even decades, with the intent to make money on the success of a business.
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Traders: In contrast to investors, traders may hold positions for only days, minutes or even seconds. They try to make small amounts of money on the change in the market’s sentiment over short periods.
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Investment banks: Investment banks are looking to make money by issuing securities such as stocks (through IPOs, for example) and bonds to the market, and so they need to convince companies to sell those securities and investors to buy them.
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Companies: Companies may want to expand and so they may issue stock or bonds to do so. They also may want to acquire another publicly traded company for strategic reasons, and so they may choose to purchase all the existing shares of the company.
