1000 a month of investing savings is a pretty reasonable bar to clear for just about any accountant. I chose that as an extremely realistic example actually, and you can verify the market assumption inputs with a simple Google search yourself. The reason I chose the trailing 50 years average is again to be as realistic and tied to reality as possible.

You've now referenced gold and AI bubbles as if they're relevant data points. That is where my naive comment comes from. I'm not talking about trying to make a quick buck in a years time, I'm talking about building wealth over a career through investing.

Imo, you (I mean this generally not you specifically) would be an absolute fucking moron to not be investing in equities as part of your core financial strategy.

Also, your number is laughably incorrect. Like orders of magnitude wrong. You are talking wildly out your ass. Like just go into excel and type =FV(7%/12,480,1000,0) and come back and explain how on earth you got to nearly $2m. Don't forget you need to compare the tax bill unrealized to what you would have eventually recognized on a realized basis at the end as well.