Are you afraid of investing in the stock market? Here are 3 reasons why.

​The stock market has proven a great investment over the last century - investing prudently and in a disciplined way in the stock market would have yielded great results in every two-decade-long period in the US. This means that no matter where you start in the last 100 years (even a day before the collapse that started the Great Depression), if you invested wisely (meaning you diversified and dollar cost averaged into the market), you would have been far better off by investing in 20 years than you would have been holding the money in cash instead. 

If this is the case, why are so many people so afraid of buying stock? Here are 3 reasons why:

1. You Don't Understand What a Stock Actually Represents

If you're afraid of investing in the stock market, you might simply not understand what a stock actually represents - you literally don't know what it is. Of course, you've heard of stocks and you know they are some sort of financial instrument or products, but if pressed you probably can't give even a basic definition that would clearly define what a stock is. 

If you're in this camp of people, it does make a bit of sense that you're hesitant to invest in equities and delve into the stock market. People are often (and often rightly) afraid of what they don't understand - human nature keeps us safe by making us a bit frightened of the unknown. If you don't really know about something, how can you know if it's good or bad? Just as importantly, if you don't know about something, how can you know how to deal with it in productive and effective ways? Maybe it's better to just stay away from those things you don't know? 

Staying away might be a good idea for some things in life, but it's a bad idea when it comes to delving into the equities market in your financial life - by not investing in companies around the world through the purchase of shares on the stock market, you are denying your financial self and your portfolio one of the best ways regular individuals can have a piece of the global financial pie and ride the wave of global growth over the long term. Without investing in stocks, you're not going to benefit when global GDP increases - you're going to have to rely either solely on your own labor income or a bit of interest income you'll earn by letting other people use your capital. Buying shares of good firms around the world, however, will allow you to literally have an ownership state in the global economy. 

So, if you don't know anything about stocks today, it's time to learn. Fortunately, you're already ahead of many others because you're here reading this on this website - you've already taken a crucial first step. Next, you'll want to pursue around Pennies and Pounds a bit more in a free-form way to just get a feel of the kind of stock-related information that is out there. Once you've got a general conception, a book or two will prove quite useful in helping you delve deeper and learn more about personal finance and the stock market. Never underestimate the importance of learning about personal finance - your financial life is a key part of your overall life and not spending any time in studying up is as foolish as not going to school but expecting to do well in the job market.

2. You've Invested in the Stock Market in the Past, but You've Been Burned and Remain Scarred

Maybe you do know about stocks. Maybe you've even ventured out into the equities market in the past. And maybe you've been burned by it. Maybe you've

• invested in a firm that went bankrupt
• invested right before an economic downturn (and then sold at a loss)
• invested and saw your investments go nowhere over a significant period of time

If the above happened to you, it's no surprise you're hesitant to go back into the stock market. You probably feel like 

• you don't know enough to invest
• investing is only for professionals
• the entire investing game is stacked against a little guy or a little girl like you
• that it's better to play it safe in more tangible things such as cash in a savings account or real estate

Although it's understandable that you feel this way, it's totally wrong - you're wrong if getting burned in the past has fundamentally created a negative outlook of the stock market for you. You got hurt in the past not because there are fundamental flaws in the stock market or that investing in stocks is simply not for you - you got burned because you made incorrect decisions. 

Investing in stocks well requires a certain amount of basic knowledge. Things such as

• an understanding of diversification
• an understanding of your own time horizon and risk tolerance
• an understanding of what makes companies valuable at all
• a basic understanding of the business cycle and volatility
• a basic understanding of the history of the stock market

are required to be able to effectively invest in stocks. An understanding of these things will provide knowledge to navigate the equities landscape and will temper any irrationality that arises due to fear or misunderstanding. 

If you got burned in the past in the stock market you probably bought a single stock or just a handful of stocks - this is foolish unless you're a Warren Buffet and for most people proper diversification is key. If you invested in Lehman Brothers or Pets.com or any other hot stock pic, you would have gotten burned - you invested without diversification and you invested in the wrong thing.

If you're going to stock pick, then make sure you pick the right stock.  is not possible for most and, therefore, stock picking should be avoided like the plague. Instead, diversification via the use of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) should be utilized with a few stocks here and there if you're willing to take on the risk. Additionally, a robust (but not too robust) cash position (that is separate from your emergency fund) would provide liquidity and help reduce the overall volatility of your portfolio.

You also might have gotten burned because you invested at the wrong time (eg. the Dot Com Bubble or in 2006/7) and then sold at the wrong time instead of waiting for the market to recover. Instead, you should have:

• not gone in all at once and
• not sold at the bottom

Instead of going in at once, a dollar cost averaging approach where you invest a bit every month or every quarter allows for less risk because instead of investing at a single time, you can take advantage of market drops by having your money purchase more stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs. Additionally, you must be disciplined enough to not sell in a market panic - this is very hard and this is what kills most investors. You need to study the history of the stock market and keep that history in mind in order to temper the craziness that will arise in your mind when you see your portfolio going down. A good investor that is invested in a strong and diversified portfolio will not sell at a panic - this investor will understand how foolish it is to liquidate positions at a market drop and will instead keep disciplined and follow through with his or her investing strategy.

3. You've Heard too Many Stock Market Horror Stories

Maybe your dad or your uncle got burned investing in stocks. Maybe a high school teacher told you about her venture into the stock market and how horribly it turned out. Maybe your grandparents' told you stories of the Great Depression and how they only hold cash and bonds. Maybe you've watched one too many news episodes during the Great Recession. Maybe you grew up in a house where there was a lot of misunderstanding and fear about the stock market. 

Whatever or whoever go this fear into your head - it's not rational. Stocks have created tremendous amounts of wealth for both rich people and middle-class people over the last century. The Great Depression, the Great Recession, Black Friday, the Dot Com Bust, and all of the other horrible things that happened in the financial markets would not affect an investor that was properly diversified and dollar cost averaging (instead of going all in at once). It's normal that hearing of other people's failures when investing in stocks would make you cautious, but it doesn't have to be that way - you can easily succeed in the stock market if you take a disciplined and prudent approach. More importantly, if you're going to really build wealth and not simply rely on your own income, the stock market is one of your best bets.