The Importance of Compounding

For those readers who know me well, this is a familiar topic. I am a major advocate of encouraging young people to start investing early. The principal reason being that if you start early enough, the prospect of becoming rich is almost guaranteed.

A little known fact is that over the course of the 20^th century, every $1,000 invested in the S&P 500 stock market index, with dividends reinvested, would have become about $19 million. What is even more impressive is that over most of that time, no real work was required by the investor. You could have been