I can think of a few things that many would consider to be like watching paint dry.... watching golf, watching baseball (I actually love baseball so I disagree), watching interpretive dancing, or watching (and trying to listen to) your parents talk at you about how the municipal sanding trucks "purposely" shovel snow onto their lawn and kill the grass.
Investing is and should be like watching paint dry. Many individuals get too wound up in trying to make a quick profit and end up taking on way too much risk, resulting in substantial losses. Experiencing a substantial loss can easily "burn" someone from ever wanting to invest or "try" investing again. Similar to the saying "first impressions last the longest", many individuals who have had bad experiences with the stock market (or any investment) will conjure up a false view of the markets, always believing that the one bad experience is a true representation of the markets or investing as a whole. While being aware of potential risks is important, it's vital to look at investing over a long period of time and not just hone in on one specific event in history and use that single event or experience as an excuse to make your case against taking risk.
Are you going to look at the 2008 financial crisis as an excuse to never invest in the market because stocks might drop? Maybe owning a retail store is a bad idea too because you might have to sell certain items on sale at a discount for a few months? Same thing.
Investing specifically in the stock market is a long term journey. Historically since the mid 1920s, the average annual return on the S&P 500 is roughly 7% (some sources claim up to 10%). ON AVERAGE. This includes times of huge booming economies, as well as severe economic recessions. However, the markets always have a bias to the upside and on average an investor would have realized an annual return of 7%. Using the rule of 72, an investor can double their money every 10 years on average given this average annual return.
So what exactly does long term mean? To some people, one year is a long term investment. In reality, a one year investment is extremely short term since the market can be quite unpredictable over such a short period of time. However, over a 10 to 20 year long term period, markets consistently show a bias to the upside. Buying, holding, and "forgetting" an ETF that tracks the S&P 500 or TSX index is like watching paint dry, but it will provide an investor with a respectable return that can compound over time quite nicely (see Lesson 6).
Proper investing is not exciting and is quite boring. It should be boring. It should be like watching paint dry. If people want excitement, they can go to Vegas and put $1000 on black. Investing should not be like gambling. Buying volatile penny stocks and triple leveraged ETFs is gambling and not a feasible long term investing strategy to grow your net worth over time. But hey penny stocks and leveraged ETFs tracking the VIX are fun right?
May 25, 2017: Weekly Chart of HVU : Double Leverage ETF that tracks the Volatility Index (VIX)
May 25, 2017: 1 Year Chart of HVU : Double Leverage ETF that tracks the Volatility Index (VIX)
May 25, 2017: 10 Year Chart of HVU : Double Leverage ETF that tracks the Volatility Index (VIX)