Don’t flirt with risk when ‘boring’ index funds could be a safe bet

My knowledge of poker doesn’t extend beyond playing some fun games with friends and pennies in the pot. When I was in the Merchant Marine, I had the sense to never play poker with older seamen drinking and talking night after night. I saw several seamen who had been dealt one too many losing hands walk down the gangway at the end of a voyage with nothing to show for months of work.

In other words, I inhabit a very different world from Nate Silver, professional poker player, election model builder and founder of “FiveThirtyEight” (now owned by Disney and rebranded at ABC News as “538″). His latest book “On The Edge: The Art of Risking Everything” is “about gambling and risk, and a lot of other things.”

I enjoyed the intelligence and conversational tone of the book and the many fascinating asides along the way. Silver writes with clarity about probability and risk, which isn’t easy to do. I made many notes in the book’s margins.

A major theme is the tension between the “River” and “Village” communities. The River is Silver’s term for the sprawling ecosystem that thrives on evaluating risks, expected value and playing the percentages. The River includes poker pros, crypto kings, financiers and venture capitalists. The River is Silver’s tribe. Silver contrasts the River with the Village, mostly left-of-center and risk-averse elites housed in academia (think Ivy League), media (the New York Times) and government. The Village competes with the River for power and influence. Silver isn’t fond of the Village, yet he is well aware of the flaws and blind spots of the River community.

Silver does an excellent job showing how much concerted effort and knowledge it takes to play the odds well in Las Vegas, Silicon Valley and Wall Street. His analysis inadvertently highlights the personal-finance insight that the typical small-business owner and employee saving for their retirement should mostly depend on broad-based, low-fee index funds. Considering the time demands of work and home, the idea of matching wits with the River community in our spare time looks bad for our long-term financial and possibly mental health. You may not want to risk it all and end up with not enough saved at the end of your journey like those crestfallen sailors.

Instead, embrace the benefits of diversification, invest with an equity orientation for the long-haul with market-mimicking index funds and keep fees low. As Nobel laureate William Sharpe says, indexing is “a dull, boring way to be a better investor than many of your friends.” And, I would add, a better investor than many people who call the River home.

Chris Farrell is senior economics contributor, “Marketplace”; and a commentator for Minnesota Public Radio.