You might not think it’s possible to outperform the average Wall Street professional with just a single investment. Fund managers are highly educated and steeped in market data. They get paid a lot of money to make smart investments.

But the truth is, most of them may not be worth the money. With the right steps, individual investors can outperform the majority of active large-cap mutual fund managers over the long run. You don’t need a doctorate or MBA, and you certainly don’t need to follow the everyday goings-on in the stock market. You just need to buy a single investment and hold it forever.

That’s because 88% of active large-cap fund managers have underperformed the S&P 500 index over the last 15 years thru Dec. 31, 2023, according to S&P Global’s most recent SPIVA (S&P Indices Versus Active) scorecard. So if you buy a simple S&P 500 index fund like the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO), chances are that your investment will outperform the average active mutual fund in the long run.

Why is it so hard for fund managers to outperform the S&P 500?

It’s a good bet that the average fund manager is hardworking and well-trained. But there are at least two big factors working against active fund managers.

The first is that institutional investors make up roughly 80% of all trading in the U.S. stock market — far higher than it was years ago when retail investors dominated the market. That means a professional investor is mostly trading shares with another manager who is also very knowledgeable, making it much harder to gain an edge and outperform the benchmark index.

The more basic problem, though, is that fund managers don’t just need to outperform their benchmark index. They need to beat the index by a wide enough margin to justify the fees they charge. And that reduces the odds that any given large-cap fund manager will be able to outperform an S&P 500 index fund by a significant amount.

The SPIVA scorecard found that just 40% of large-cap fund managers outperformed the S&P 500 in 2023 once you factor in fees. So if the odds of outperforming fall to 40-60 for a single year, you can see how the odds of beating the index consistently over the long run could go way down.

What Warren Buffett recommends over any other single investment

Warren Buffett is one of the smartest investors around, and he can’t think of a single better investment than an S&P 500 index fund. He recommends it even above his own company, Berkshire Hathaway.

In his 2016 letter to shareholders, Buffett shared a rough calculation that the search for superior investment advice had cost investors, in aggregate, $100 billion over the previous decade relative to investing in a simple index fund.

Even Berkshire Hathaway holds two small positions in S&P 500 index funds. You’ll find shares of the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEMKT: SPY) in Berkshire’s quarterly disclosures. Both are great options for index investors, offering low expense ratios and low tracking errors (a measure of how closely an ETF price follows the underlying index). There are plenty of other solid index funds you could buy, but either of the above is an excellent option as a starting point.

Should you invest $1,000 in Vanguard S&P 500 ETF right now?

Before you buy stock in Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Vanguard S&P 500 ETF wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

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Adam Levy has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Want to Outperform 88% of Professional Fund Managers? Buy This 1 Investment and Hold It Forever. was originally published by The Motley Fool

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Netflix (NFLX) stock slid as much as 9.6% Friday after the company gave a second quarter revenue forecast that missed estimates and announced it would stop reporting quarterly subscriber metrics closely watched by Wall Street.

On Thursday, Netflix guided to second quarter revenue of $9.49 billion, a miss compared to consensus estimates of $9.51 billion.

The company said it will stop reporting quarterly membership numbers starting next year, along with average revenue per member, or ARM.

“As we’ve evolved our pricing and plans from a single to multiple tiers with different price points depending on the country, each incremental paid membership has a very different business impact,” the company said.

Netflix reported first quarter earnings that beat across the board on Thursday, with another 9 million-plus subscribers added in the quarter.

Subscriber additions of 9.3 million beat expectations of 4.8 million and followed the 13 million net additions the streamer added in the fourth quarter. The company added 1.7 million paying users in Q1 2023.

Revenue beat Bloomberg consensus estimates of $9.27 billion to hit $9.37 billion in the quarter, an increase of 14.8% compared to the same period last year as the streamer leaned on revenue initiatives like its crackdown on password-sharing and ad-supported tier, in addition to the recent price hikes on certain subscription plans.

Netflix’s stock has been on a tear in recent months, with shares currently trading near the high end of its 52-week range. Wall Street analysts had warned that high expectations heading into the print could serve as an inherent risk to the stock price.

Earnings per share (EPS) beat estimates in the quarter, with the company reporting EPS of $5.28, well above consensus expectations of $4.52 and nearly double the $2.88 EPS figure it reported in the year-ago period. Netflix guided to second quarter EPS of $4.68, ahead of consensus calls for $4.54.

Profitability metrics also came in strong, with operating margins sitting at 28.1% for the first quarter compared to 21% in the same period last year.

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The company previously guided to full-year 2024 operating margins of 24% after the metric grew to 21% from 18% in 2023. Netflix expects margins to tick down slightly in Q2 to 26.6%.

Free cash flow came in at $2.14 billion in the quarter, above consensus calls of $1.9 billion.

Meanwhile, ARM ticked up 1% year over year — matching the fourth quarter results. Wall Street analysts expect ARM to pick up later this year as both the ad-tier impact and price hike effects take hold.

On the ads front, ad-tier memberships increased 65% quarter over quarter after rising nearly 70% sequentially in Q3 2023 and Q4 2023. The ads plan now accounts for over 40% of all Netflix sign-ups in the markets it’s offered in.

Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.

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Italian FM says Israel gave US ‘last minute’ warning about drone attack on Iran

CAPRI, Italy (AP) — The United States told the Group of Seven foreign ministers that it received “last minute” information from Israel about a drone action in Iran early this morning, Italy’s foreign minister says.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who chaired the meeting of ministers of industrialized countries, says the United States provided the information at session this morning that was changed at the last minute to address the suspected attack.

Tajani says the US informed the G7 ministers that it had been “informed at the last minute” by Israel about the drones. “But there was no sharing of the attack by the US. It was a mere information.”

Early Friday, Iran fired air defenses at a major air base and a nuclear site near the central city of Isfahan after spotting drones, part of an apparent Israeli attack in retaliation for Tehran’s unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country last weekend.

In a communique following the three-day meeting, the ministers urged the parties “to prevent further escalation.”

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