When it comes to stock investing, many people assume that their best route to riches is to carefully pick stocks on their own. That is a way to outperform the overall stock market, but it's far easier said than done.

Most people don't have the skill set to be the next Warren Buffett -- and indeed, over the past 15 years, fully 92% of all large-cap mutual funds underperformed the S&P 500 index. (The S&P 500 index is no slouch, either, averaging roughly 10% annual returns over a long period.)

Simply put, most of us would do well to keep plunking meaningful sums into one or more index funds year after year -- for lots of years. Index funds can really be all you need to build a hefty nest egg for retirement.

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Source Fool.com