Sometimes the best thing to do is set it, forget it ... even if a recession is possibly near

So I wanted to share a quick thought. I am a 30 yo investor and also am a trader. I have different brokerage accounts set up for different things. Brokerage account A is for my long term investing (just in VOO and QQQM). I throw $300 into it every paycheck and have for years. This is my set it an forget it account. This account will someday be almost for sure worth a lot more than it is. Brokerage account B is for trading and I like to swing trade (I never day trade). I will wait for extremes in the market (i.e. in March 2020 I bought up Wayfair and Amazon stocks due to the lockdowns and people buying from home being the norm for awhile).

I have a Brokerage account C that is only dividend paying ETFs but I am not going to talk about that account right now on here. I opened up both brokerage accounts A and B in 2017 when I began to have throw money available. An almost down to the dollar amount has been added to both brokerage accounts. Are you ready for the rate of return comparison? Before I give it I want to say a few things: Brokerage account A took me less than 2 hours of research to decide which 2 ETFs to throw my money in. This is again just investing in 2 ETFs (VOO and QQQM). I click "market" and then "buy" and I purchase as much of these 2 ETFs equally as quickly as I can when I get a paycheck and have money left over. This takes no time at all. Brokerage account B has probably taken me hundreds of hours of research, I have lost sleep (both because of having really good days and really bad days - like when I bought NIO 16 months ago).

Rate of return of brokerage account A since 2017 (average year over year return): 6.1%

Rate of return of brokerage account B since 2017 (average year over year return): 6.2%

That is it. All of the hundreds of hours of starting at Finviz screens. All of the times of comparing a stock to another stocks PE, forward PE, company debt, etc etc has yielded me a 0.1% difference to the upside. If I could go back in time I would have been better off just throwing money into brokerage account A. One of the reasons I have not done better in account B is because there are many talking heads out there who swore we would be in a recession, akin to 2008 (25% - 30% down from all time highs). It reminds me of the many talking heads in 2010, then in 2011, then in 2012, then again in 2013 who swore we would have a double dip recession and that the rally in 2009-2010 was inflated. Well that was not true - a person would have been better off just investing in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, etc in an ETF and not trying to gamble with which company will do good and which will not.

Link for those who remember the times of us being told we are heading for a double dip recession, circa 2010: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/economy/15stra.html

Circa 2011: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna43946055