For Retail Investors: Minimize Trades, Harness the Power of Time

Is the average retail investor supposed to dive headfirst into the market, watching it tick every single day?
Certainly not. Your maneuvering room is quite limited—you can't go long when valuations are extremely high, and you need to carefully consider buying when they're extraordinarily low.
Opportunities appear in the market every day, a whole pile of them, but from your perspective, they may come only a handful of times in a lifetime.
The reasons are simple. First, your capital isn't substantial; you have to buy a house and a car and fund education. Your money is for living, not idle investable funds that will never see use for eight lifetimes.
Second, you can't devote all your time to the market because you still have a day job.