Why the average person is horrible at investing in the stock market

This recent article from Monday July 8th Barron’s is  a good example why the average person is horrible at investing.  For example, read the small print or better yet look up the funds for yourself.  Most of them charge an average 4.7% upfront sales charge.  Basically a year or more worth of interest before you receive a dime from an income fund.   The author states that these funds in some cases produced double digit returns.  You don’t have to look further than their stock charts to see how dicey that proposition is. If you haven’t made money in a bond fund the last three years, you’d have to rank as really incompetent. Worse yet is that these funds have produced negative real returns since 2007 if they existed that far back.  I’ve included a chart from the largest  and oldest of them, the Franklin Income Fund.  It has negative real returns.

According to Barron’s  These five funds all have strong managers and longer track records than many peers. Each takes a somewhat different approach, though all are focused on generating income. If you think negative real returns over the last five years is good, you are horrible at investing too.