If you are going to invest in the S&P 500 you don't need an advisor. No point in paying someone else to do what you can do at no cost.

When my mother finally couldn't be at home by herself any longer my "smarter" older siblings sold her house and invested the money in the stock market for her long term care. That $170,000 turned into 89,000 in less than two years before it finally got pulled out.

For short term the stock market is a super risky option.

Oh I don’t know about calling it a casino.
Stock market has a pretty consistent, demonstrating a long time pattern of up about every three years then maybe down one. Cycles right along with election years. Investing is a marathon not a sprint so I don’t get too excited over the swings up or down (records included) I just watch the long term patterns and direction. If you have a good diversified portfolio and a disciplined approach of feeding it, and patience, it’s hard to beat the stock market for average gains over the long haul.
The folks that go in/out tend to do the worst unless I course you are excellent with options and day trading. But that approach is also the fastest way to lose if you are not good at that.
Been very good me over past 35 years investing. You cannot beat the power of compounded earnings over time.
Even a couple good growth mutual funds with lost costs will generally get you an average of 12+ percent gains over time and I don’t know anything else that will push those returns out consistently over time with so little hands on needed.
Jim

When my mother finally couldn't be at home by herself any longer my "smarter" older siblings sold her house and invested the money in the stock market for her long term care. That $170,000 turned into 89,000 in less than two years before it finally got pulled out.

For short term the stock market is a super risky option.

My mom spent the past 9 years in the nursing home. My dad wrote a $10,000 check to the nursing home every month for 8 of those years. He passed away a little over a year ago, then I had the honor of writing those checks until she passed away last December. My pops never made over $25/hour in his life, had no nursing home insurance and paid mom's way every day she spent in the home. Had he not taught himself how to invest in the stock market some 35 years ago, Medicaid (we) would have had to foot the bill. I don't fault your siblings on the investment decision, if that was the majority of her life savings, the nursing home was going to get it all anyway, I think. At least by investing in the market there was a slim chance to prolong the inevitable.

Nothing wrong with reading books on investing,,, everyone should

IMhO,,, it’s more important as an investor to understand basic economic theory

Understanding the system we are in,,,, and where we are headed(the future)

Helps greatly in investment decisions

I forgot to add that I’m 3 years in retirement so if your younger and building towards wealth keep it all in the market until you approach retirement.

Even just the basic understanding of the differences between Keynesian(current system sorta,,,) and Austrian economics is very useful

Helps explain the effect the central bank has on everything (inflation/ interest rates/money supply) and many other things (wages/ supply / political influence),,,,what’s going to happen in the future

There’s other theories,,,,,

Could write entire essays on it,,,, but I’m not going too

It’s an excellent question for AI if you’re interested,,,, and you should be!

The more you dig into it,,,, the easier it is to predict what’s about to happen,,,,, and how equities are going to be affected

Which at the end of the day,,,,, as an investor you’re trying to do