[quote=pri_dk][quote=garysears]I have no faith in the system. There are too many Enrons and Countrywides and Citibanks, and Bank of Americas, and Goldman Sachs, and Lehman Brothers, etc. out there.[/quote]
Too many? I think you just named most of them.
For every one of those, there are hundreds of legit companies.
Simple math: Invest equally in 20 companies, if 1 of them fails completely and the other 19 grow by 10% each, you still come out ahead.
The failure rate for companies in a single year is nowhere near 1 in 20. But average annual growth of 10% quite common.
Anybody can crop a chart to show short-term losses over a specific period and declare buy-and-hold a poor strategy.
Does there need to be more transparency? Absolutely. Is the market overvalued right now? Probably.
But buy and hold is the only strategy with with overwhelming statistical evidence to support it.
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I would think that most people however don’t pick the 20 or so select companies that are still around 40 years.
It just seems the odds are stacked against most people. (Not arguing against buying and holding. Perhaps it’s something of a strategy when you talk about the entire markets).
Which companies have been around for some time which inflation adjusted still are turning doing well…I can think of oil conglomerates…Maybe some older brick and mortar companies like MMM, PG….
