Jason Zweig

The New York Stock Exchange originated at a place called the Tontine Coffee House.

It shows how inextricably linked

These two ideas are the idea that retirement is an insurance policy against risk and it's pooled with lots of people.

And that is inextricably linked to the stock market.

It just is.

It is somewhat of a gamble.

There's a common belief that if you hold stocks long enough, you're effectively guaranteed a robust positive return.

And both statistically and historically, it's not really true.

I hope, and this is the gamble that I'm taking and everyone knows,

Invested in the stock market is taking it with me.

I hope that the stock market will perform great over the next few decades so that the money I have invested in it for my retirement will continue to grow.

But there's no guarantee of that.

Yes, I'm Jason Zweig, and I write the Intelligent Investor column for The Wall Street Journal.

Oh, that's a great question, Ryan.

So I often hear from readers that I'm stupid, so let's take it head on.

It's about judgment.

It's about common sense and independence and skepticism.

Which are harder skills to learn, actually.

They are very difficult to learn.

And I, as time passes, I've come to think of them as virtues rather than skills.