Short-term speculation in the stock market is a sucker’s game, says Jack Bogle, legendary founder of The Vanguard Group.

“The game is rigged," he tells Yahoo. "It is too convoluted. It is too complex. You shouldn't be playing the game. You don't need to play the game."

Bogle isn’t impressed with the leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that allow speculators to up the ante on their bets as to whether the stock market will rise or fall in coming hours or days.
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"The index investor doesn't need to be touched by any of the lunacy that is going on in the ETF market," he says. Instead, investors should stick with simple index funds mimicking the broad stock market.

Jack Bogle (Vanguard file photo)

“We have all these hot new products developed by this burgeoning new industry — the ETF industry, which has got to be the greatest marketing idea of this age,” Bogle says.

But “it’s not the greatest investment idea of this age, I can assure you."

Making money on stocks comes from earnings, dividends, and return on capital, he says. "If you own the stock market for a lifetime, you get those returns.”

One big question for the U.S. stock market is the long-term impact of Europe’s debt crisis. Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross says the negative impact may be over.

“I think our markets have fairly well priced in all but the most draconian of scenarios,” he tells Bloomberg.