By Clayton Daniel.

I’m sure you heard the news. Snapchat listed on the US stock exchange this month.

This was a pretty big deal. A company which built itself on a scandalous premise has just turned it’s founder and CEO Evan Spiegel into the world’s youngest self-made billionaire.

This nineties kid has shown the world that eyes are what matters the most. Not early sales, not the barriers to entry – but simply attention. And if you can pull it off, riches and super model fiancés await.

Things couldn’t be better for Evan. But what about the investors since Snapchat listed?

Well we’ve seen a lot of volatility. In March alone the stock price has bounced around between $19 and $30. This isn’t completely out of the ordinary for such a high profile IPO, but I’m sure the market is still deciding on whether Snapchat is the next Myspace or the next Facebook.

But imagine all those people who waited patiently for this stock to list, bought at the top, freaked out and sold when it bottomed out, and sat there looking at their bank account with 30% in it only a few days later.

I promise you this happened.

Do you know why? Because unless you are an investment expert, unless investments are your day to day job, investing is controlled by emotion. The old Wallstreet adage is still true “financial markets are driven by two powerful emotions – greed and fear.”

And I’m not slamming those who did it. More than likely it was those hoping to learn more about investing, were aware of Snapchat, so took the plunge. Emotions would have completely driven the entire experience.

I’ve been there. All investors have. Controlling your emotions while investing is one of the hardest – yet most pivotal things to master. The problem is, unless you want to spend many hours trading for either yourself or a large institution, you’re always going to be emotionally involved.

Another option is an investment strategy that has been outrageously popular since the GFC, outsourcing your investment decisions to an algorithm. This trading algorithm doesn’t suffer from emotional involvement, isn’t swept up in the latest craze, or sell at the worst time possible.

It is simply designed to follow investment instructions. It’s called an ETF. There are many different types, but the most popular simply hold a tiny piece of the biggest companies in the world. For example, if you had owned an S&P500 ETF, you would have automatically invested around 0.2% of your portfolio in Snapchat regardless.

No effort. No research. No getting swept up in the emotion of the trade. However now Snapchat will play a roll in your overall performance. Not a massive roll, but an appropriate sized roll. It would sit relatively equally among 500 other large and profitable businesses.

And this is the beauty of ETF investing. It is emotionless investing, the best kind of investing. And unless you become a full time investor, it will be the best way to unemotionally invest over many years. So unless you are a professional investor, any head-space you put towards investing is simply going to create decision fatigue. And the best way to invest without emotion, without the effort, and without the need to become an investment expert – invest in ETFs. Luckily for you, that’s all Raiz uses.

By Clayton Daniel of Fund Your Ideal Lifestyle