Index funds lack the excitement of individual stocks. But a boring investment strategy is not necessarily a bad investment strategy. In fact, the opposite is often true. Investors who treat their portfolios as entertainment can easily wind up in the red. Moreover, outperforming the major stock market indexes over an extended period is hard. Even professionals struggle to overcome those odds.

Indeed, Warren Buffett once wrote, "By periodically investing in an index fund, for example, the know-nothing investor can actually out-perform most investment professionals."

Now is a good time to put money into the stock market. The S&P 500 reached a record high in January for the first time in two years. That means stocks are officially in a bull market, a threshold that generally portends substantial price appreciation over a sustained period.

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Source Fool.com