All life is a chance. The man who goes the furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. He called it a fallacy, and conceded that it is truly likely that if you hold stocks over long periods of time that they would tend to produce returns higher than other assets. What is seldom introduced is the fact that if there is a significant onetime loss, it can be monumentally overwhelming.
Risk is a complex, multidimensional concept that manifests itself in various ways.
Risk is omnipresent and includes stock market crashes, corporate bankruptcies, currency devaluations, changes in sentiment, in inflation and interest rates, and even major changes in the tax code. Risk is generally defined as return volatility, or the degree of ups and downs of returns. But there's more to risk than volatility. Risk and long-term reward are generally related. Risk is the chance that your actual return will be less than you expected.