Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTHillary RemySun, August 2, 2026 at 6:03 PM GMT+2 5 min readMost people assume that the world's most successful investors have some edge that regular people can't access. Better information. Smarter models. A network of insiders who call before the news breaks. Warren Buffett spent 60 years proving that assumption wrong, building one of the greatest fortunes in history through patience and simplicity rather than complexity.And yet when people ask him what they should do with their money, his answer has been the same for decades. It's not a stock tip. It's not a sector call. It's an ETF that anyone can buy for three cents on every hundred dollars invested.What Warren Buffett actually recommends for most investorsBuffett has made his position clear in shareholder letters, interviews, and annual meetings going back years. In his 2016 shareholder letter, he wrote: "My regular recommendation has been a low-cost S&P 500index fund." At Berkshire's 2021 annual meeting, he said: "In my view, for most people, I think that the best thing to do is buy an S&P 500 index fund."The most direct version of the advice came in his 2013 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, where he described the instructions he had written into his will for the money he would leave to his wife: "My advice to the trustee could not be more simple: Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard's.) I believe the trust's long-term results from this policy will be superior to those attained by most investors, whether pension funds, institutions or individuals, who employ high-fee managers," according to The Motley Fool.More Warren Buffett: