The morning commute gives you talk radio with a stockbroker who chimes in on his favorite local company. Noontime comes around and Jim Cramer is spouting his latest picks on his Mad Money show. The dinner hour arrives and two guys who call themselves the Motley Fools are chirping away on CNN’s Larry King Live about he next hot stocks to own that will lead us out of this recession.

If you didn’t know any better, you would think that picking top stocks actually plays an important role in building long term wealth. Here’s a dirty little secret the talking heads will ever tell you: It doesn’t.

In fact, I will take it a step further and say that trying to pick the top stocks touted by these talking heads is not only a waste of your time, but destructive toward your efforts at building long term wealth. Let’s take a closer look.

When you invest directly in the stock market, you have one of three choices. You can invest in individual stocks, you can turn your money over to a “self-proclaimed” professional stock-picker and buy actively managed mutual funds, or you can own a low-cost index fund – an unmanaged mutual fund that owns all the stocks of a particular index, such as the Wilshire 5000 index.

Here is what the talking heads are keeping quiet: If the stock market generates an annualized return over the next five years of 9 percent, your chances of beating that 9 percent by chasing hot stocks is infinitesimal. The sad irony of their advice is that the more effort you put in to picking hot stocks, the worse your returns are likely to be.

So the next time you see someone riveted to the television, hoping to pick up on the next hot stock idea, relax; you are not missing out on a thing. There will always be gamblers masquerading as investors. For anyone who allocates a portion of their portfolio to common stocks, it is important to know the difference.

Why is this significant? The steep decline in the stock market has created valuations in common stocks that are likely to generate fairly attractive returns over the next five to 10 years. It will be a chance for investors to use this period in this asset class to build wealth in their portfolios. Tuning in to the talking heads might be interesting and entertaining, but it won’t help your bottom line.

For Coffeehouse Investors, low-cost, tax-efficient index funds are the smart way to invest in common stocks and reap the potential rewards of this asset class.