The 7-9% return is figured over a 50 to 70 year time period (Wall Street doesn’t mention this when they are touting “Buy and Hold”)

Most investors have an investment window of 30 to 40 years max so the 7-9% is really deceptive and mostly irrelevant

“The article reinforces my personal financial strategy” – I think this is called confirmation bias in psychological circles – there is actually a part of our brain that searches for input to validate our thinking – it is called the reticular activating system (RAS) – the RAS is a filter mechanism – filter out the things we don’t want to be aware of and filter in (or alert us to) things we do want to be aware of

I am guilty of confirmation bias as well but my RAS alerts me to data that confirms the negative things happening in our economy right now

If the Dow rallies back over 10K, you might want to re-think your Buy and Hold strategy and lighten up a little (or a lot) on your equity holdings