The 3 ETFs That Created More Millionaires Than Any Stock

If you invested $1,000 into the Amazon stock almost three decades ago, you would be a millionaire today. The problem with that is most people are not going to find the next Amazon. But there is an alternative, and this alternative does not require you to try to find the next Amazon because most people will lose money trying to do that. It's by using the right ETFs. When you invest in the ETF, now you are investing in a group of stocks or a basket of stocks. You're not going to invest just in one company. So now you might be investing in this ETF that gives you exposure to companies like Amazon, but that's not all. Maybe you also invest in Apple, but maybe you have some diversification. Maybe you're also investing in McDonald's and you're also investing in Coca-Cola. And maybe this is also investing in tech companies like NVIDIA. And so now when you invest in this one ETF, you're investing in all these different types of companies. That way, you're not trying to find the perfect company, but not all ETFs are created equal. And certain ETFs have created more millionaires than any other stock out there. And in this video, I want to highlight three different ETFs that have created more millionaires than any stock. That way, if you are thinking about investing your money in the stock market or you want to build an ETF portfolio, this can help guide your knowledge. Again, I can't tell you what to invest in because I'm just a random guy on YouTube. Investing has risks. You're never guaranteed to make money when you invest. In fact, you will lose money at some point. So make sure you always do your own due diligence and never blindly trust a random guy on YouTube. But my goal is to help you start thinking like an investor. That way, you can start building your investment portfolio based off of what's right for you. Now, the nice thing about ETFs is you can buy them just like you would any stock. Pretty much every brokerage out there will allow you to invest in these ETFs. They have a ticker symbol just like every other stock does. And so you can buy it however you would any regular stock. But now, instead of just buying one stock, when you buy an ETF, you're getting ownership in dozens of stocks, hundreds of stocks, or potentially even thousands of stocks, depending on which ETF you're going to be investing in. So let me start with ETF example number one, VOO. As a disclaimer, I'm personally invested in VOO. And this is going to give you exposure to the S&P 500. Now, let me tell you a little story because in 2007, Warren Buffett placed a $1 million bet against a top hedge fund manager. And what he said is that, I bet that the S&P 500 will give better returns than investing money with a high-powered and expensive hedge fund manager. Why? Because the hedge fund is working to pick the best stocks, which number one, is hard to do. But then number two, these expensive hedge funds are going to charge extremely high fees. They're going to charge a 2% management fee plus 20% of profits. And so what he said was, let's take a look at what happens over the next 10 years, comparing investing money into the S&P 500, something like VOO, versus investing that same money into a hedge fund. And after placing this $1 million bet in 2007, what we saw is that the hedge fund annualized about 2.2% returns over 10 years after you factored in the hedge fund fees, while the S&P 500 returned approximately 7.1% a year after factoring in the S&P 500 fees, which means that the average person was able to beat these expensive hedge funds just by investing their money into the S&P 500. But what is the S&P 500? The S&P 500 is a group of the 500 largest companies in the stock market. So most of the big names that you've heard of, the McDonald's, the Tesla, the Nvidia, the Meta, those are all part of the S&P 500. And when you invest into something like VOO, that is giving exposure to these 500 companies. But you don't have to go out and individually buy all 500 companies. You just buy one share of this, and you're getting exposure to all 500 of those companies. But this is where it gets very interesting and very valuable. The nice thing about the S&P 500 is if a company starts to struggle, this fund will kick that company out and replace it with another company. For example, back in the day, Sears was a big behemoth retailer. They were a part of the S&P 500. They were one of the world's largest companies. And then Sears started to struggle. And when they started to struggle, their stock started to fall, and eventually they were no longer a part of the S&P 500. And when they were no longer a part of the S&P 500, they were replaced by a chemical company that most people never heard of. But this is where it gets very valuable because now, if you invested your money into Sears, the stock, and the stock kept going down, well, then you would have owned that company into bankruptcy, or you would have had to manually come in and sell that stock and know not to keep owning Sears. But when you own something like the S&P 500, when something falls out of those 500 companies, this fund kicks that company out and replaces it with another stock, and it's completely automatic for you because you just own the biggest 500 companies. If a company is no longer part of the biggest 500 companies, they will get kicked out and replaced with another company, and you don't have to do anything because you just own the biggest 500 companies. And unfortunately, companies go bankrupt. And if you don't know how to protect yourself, well, you're going to lose money in the stock market. For example, when the S&P 500 started in the mid-1950s, there were 500 companies in there. Well, today, there's only about 50 of those companies that were originally in the S&P 500, which means about 450 of the original 500 companies in the S&P 500 are no longer there. That's why it can be valuable to invest in something like an ETF. That way, you don't have to worry about investing in the big companies. You're just always investing in the companies that are big, and when they're not big anymore, they get kicked out of the fund. This brings me to ETF example number two, and I want to remind you that for those of you that are investors and you want to keep up to date to what's happening in the financial markets, my team publishes a free daily newsletter every morning called Market Briefs, where we're breaking down what's happening in things like the economy, housing, stocks, crypto, and global markets into a fun, witty, and easy-to-read newsletter. It's read by hundreds of thousands of investors every single day, and as an added bonus, when you sign up for Market Briefs, you're also going to get access to an investing masterclass that I put together. That way, you can level up your knowledge as an investor and find better investment opportunities. It's completely free, so if you want to get Market Briefs and the investing masterclass all for free, all you have to do is So, VOO gives the exposure to the broad United States economy because you're just owning the largest 500 companies in the stock market. As the economy grows, this generally grows. If the economy's going through a recession, this generally goes down. SCHD is another ETF that I'm personally invested in, as a disclosure, but this is focused more on income rather than just growth, and when I say income, what I mean by that is that certain companies in the stock market make huge profits. For example, McDonald's makes billions of dollars of profits at the end of the year, and when a company has this big profit, there's three things they can do with this extra cash. Number one is they can reinvest that money back into the company. That way, McDonald's can open more stores, they can invest in better hamburgers, they can invest in more real estate. Option number two is they can save that money for an emergency because in case we go through a recession, they might need some extra cash to protect them, or option number three is they can just give that money away, and when they give that money away, who do they give it to? They give it to the owners of the company. They give it to the shareholders, and one way they can give it away is just writing a check to everybody that owns that stock. That's what a dividend is. Now, today, companies aren't actually writing physical checks. They just deposit this money into your bank account, and they can create a regular stream of income for you. That's what a dividend is. Generally, companies that pay out dividends are going to pay them every quarter, meaning every three months, so when you invest in these types of dividend companies or dividend-paying funds, they will generally deposit money into your bank account every three months for doing nothing except owning the right funds and owning the right stock, but the mistake that a lot of people make here is they buy companies because of the dividend that they're paying. They're not buying a company because of the underlying company, and that's a big mistake and a big problem. The reason why it's a big mistake and a big problem is people start to look for which companies pay the highest dividends, but if that company is not a good company, that dividend is not going to last, and the dividend might get cut, and so now you bought this company because they were paying out these high dividends, and now as soon as something bad happens with the company because they weren't a good company to begin with, well, the dividend starts to go down, and that means the stock is also going to go down, so now not only did you lose the income, but you also lost the money that you invested. That's why when you really want to build a strong dividend portfolio, you want to build a whole new stream of income. That way, you can replace your job. That way, you can live off of this income. You want to invest in strong companies that are also paying out strong dividends because if a company is strong, that means their profits are going to be growing, and if their profits are growing, they can pay out bigger dividend checks year after year after year, and that has the biggest opportunity because now you invest $100 today, and the income that you get every year on the $100 keeps going up because you invested your money into a good company that's working to pay out bigger dividend checks. That's the way that you want to think. SCHD is that type of dividend play where it's investing in strong dividend-paying companies, which are not just dividend-paying companies, but also strong companies that are working to grow their business and grow their profits. That way, now not only can you see a but also you see a growth in the value of your portfolio. Now, again, I'm not here to tell you what to invest in. I'm just here to help you start thinking like an investor, but SCHD is invested in about 100 different dividend-paying companies, slightly more than 100, and this is investing in companies like Chevron and ConocoPhillips and Merck and Verizon and Coca-Cola and Texas Instruments and Pepsi and Abbott Labs and Amgen and Procter & Gamble. Now, I want you to notice something. Did you notice how this wasn't investing in those big AI and tech names because those are very volatile? That's not the goal with this. This is focused on companies with big profits that are steadily working to grow. This is investing in the companies that are selling things like oil, selling things like toothpaste, selling things like Coca-Cola, selling the things that people are buying, whether there are market booms or recessions. Now, this does not mean that this fund doesn't go down. When you have market crashes and recessions, obviously the fund goes down as well, but the idea is it's more stability for more steady income and steady income growth. And it's not easy to be selected in this fund because in order to be selected to be a part of SCHD, a company must have paid a dividend for at least 10 consecutive years. Because if you have not paid a dividend for 10 consecutive years, then SCHD says you're not a strong enough dividend company to fit this ETF. So what we've talked about so far is investing in the S&P 500 for the slow and steady growth because you're getting broad exposure to the United States economy. Then we talked about number two, investing in something in the SCHD for slow and steady income growth by investing in strong companies that are working to grow their profits but also grow their dividends. And then we have number three, QQQ as a way to invest for the more aggressive growth. Now, QQQ is giving exposure to something called the NASDAQ 100. The NASDAQ 100 is a group of the 100 largest companies in the stock market that are not financial. So now when you think about the 100 largest companies that are not financial companies, these are primarily tech companies. And so what you're doing with QQQ with the NASDAQ 100 is you're getting a lot of exposure to tech. Now, what is happening with tech? We've seen a huge explosion of technology, not just in the last couple of years but in the last couple of decades. And so with that huge explosion of money going into tech, QQQ has also been a major beneficiary of that explosion because if there's more money going into tech, QQQ benefits, but it comes with a consequence. This is also very volatile. When markets go down, QQQ generally goes down even more because a lot of these tech companies do have a speculative nature to them, meaning they're just hoping that the economy keeps growing and that way they can grow even bigger and even faster. So as markets go up, QQQ generally grows even faster. As markets go down, QQQ generally slows and goes down even faster. So you have to understand the volatility that comes with QQQ, but it's grown pretty quickly and it's made many investors incredibly wealthy. Why? Because over the last 10 years or so, QQQ has averaged about 20% returns a year. Now to put that in perspective, the S&P 500 has averaged historically about 10% returns a year, which means yes, the average returns here are about double what the S&P 500 has done. However, this is more volatile. That's why people get scared and that's why people lose because this goes up and down a lot more aggressively. And when markets go down, when you go through a market crash, this gets hit hard even more. And that's the thing you want to pay attention to. For example, when the dot-com bubble burst between 2000 and 2002, internet companies got hit hard, which meant the NASDAQ 100 got hit hard. And we saw QQQ, this type of NASDAQ 100 fall by more than 75%. And that's the risk you have to remember that there's a lot of volatility. And so if this is something you want to be invested in, just know that the key is to hold through the downturns because you have to be a believer that technology is going to be more powerful in the future than it is today. And if you believe that technology is going to be more powerful in the future than it is today, then you want to be invested in it for the long-term and not sell when markets go down. So what we talked about now is different ways that you can invest your money into broad markets. You can invest your money into a broad United States economy by owning the S&P 500, the 500 largest companies in the stock market. You can invest your money for income into something like SCHD to invest in strong companies that are working to grow their profits, to grow their dividend payments. And then you can invest in growth through something like QQQ to get exposure to the NASDAQ 100. Now, the way that you win here, because the mistake that a lot of people make is they want to find the perfect time to buy. I want to buy when markets are at the all-time bottom. Well, when people follow that strategy, they tend to lose. And I'm telling you this from history because I've been making videos on YouTube for about a decade now. And in 2020, when the market crash happened, I was making videos about how this is a great buying opportunity. I'm buying in phases on the way down. I have no idea on how far down it's going to go, but I'm just going to keep buying in phases on the way down. And as the market goes down further, I'm going to buy even more aggressively. Well, I was getting flooded with comments of people saying, Jaspreet, why in the world would you be buying on the way down? The markets are going to implode. It's going to get so much worse. Wait, don't buy now. And then the Federal Reserve Bank opened up the money printer and the markets went from the fastest sell-off in history to the fastest boom in history. Fast forward to 2022. The stock market fell by 20%. Same thing. I'm making videos talking about how I'm buying on the way down. I don't know how far down it's going to go. I'm just going to keep buying. And as it goes down further, I'm going to buy even more. And again, the same comments of people saying, Jaspreet, why would you buy on the way down? Markets are crashing. It's going to get so much worse. We're going to have this deep recession. It's going to be horrible. And then 2023, markets started breaking new record highs again. Fast forward to 2025, when the tariffs hit. In February 2025, President Trump first announced tariffs. The stock market was falling hard. We were talking about why you should buy. And people said, oh my God, it's going to destroy the economy. A few days later, what happened? The tariffs were put on pause. The markets broke new record highs. Then come March, one month later, President Trump imposed new tariffs, even bigger than the ones in February. The stock market crashed again. People are freaking out that we're going to have this recession. The whole economy is going to implode. And then President Trump put a pause on those tariffs again. Markets broke brand new record highs. Then came April, Liberation Day, and President Trump came out with the biggest sweeping tariffs that we have ever seen on countries from around the world. And the stock market crashed, not just in the United States, but now globally. We saw the biggest and fastest stock market sell-off since COVID. And then a few days later again, President Trump eased up a little bit on the tariffs, and the stock market started breaking brand new record highs again. And so when you try to wait for the perfect opportunity, you end up missing the opportunity. And that's why what I like to teach is a concept called A, B, B. Always be buying. Buy when markets are up. Buy when markets are down. Buy when markets are sideways. Buy when there's a Republican in the White House. Buy when there's a Democrat. Buy when it's raining. Buy when it's sunny. The key is the A. Always be buying. And now the way that you do it, especially when you're investing in these types of broad basket funds, is you want to set up a system. And many brokerages will allow you to do this for free, is you want to set up a system where every week, or every two weeks, or every four weeks, money gets automatically, keyword, automatically pulled out of your account and invested into your portfolio of funds. And this needs to happen no matter what. So for me, and I don't tell you to have you copy what I do, I'm just telling you this to give you an example. I have a system where every Wednesday, money is pulled out of my check-ins account, and it's automatically invested in my portfolio of ETFs. This happens every Wednesday. Why did I pick Wednesday? Because it's in the middle of the week. There's no secret science as to why, but it's been going on for many years, and it's going to keep going on. And so now, every Wednesday, money gets pulled out of my account, and it's invested into a portfolio of ETFs, and this happens every Wednesday, no matter what. I don't have to touch it. It's automatic, and it's passive, and that's the strategy that the only time, there's only one time that you change this, the only time that you change this is when markets go down. You don't sell, you come in and buy even more. And now, when you have that type of strategy, you can use market downturns as an ability to build your profits even faster, because you can buy more shares of whatever funds that you have at a discounted price, and when markets go up, well, now your portfolio keeps rising. And that's the way that you want to think about it, because if your goal is to be a long-term investor, you're investing for the next 10, 20, 30 years, what's happening over the next three months or even the next three years should not change your investment portfolio strategy. So keep that in mind. The way that you win when you're investing in broad basket funds is through something like ABB, but make sure it's passive and automatic when you're investing in these ETFs. Again, if you want to stay up to date on what's happening in the markets and get my free investing masterclass, I have the link for market briefs for you down in the description. And if you got value out of this video, the best thank you is a referral. So if you could, please share this video with a friend, family member, colleague, or fellow investor, that way we can continue to spread this type of financial education. Thank you. 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