Thanks so much for posting this!Jeff Albertson wrote:from the Economist's Buttonwood:http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwo ... /investingElroy Dimson, Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton of the London Business School are the acknowledged experts on global investment returns, having compiled data covering 22 countries over more than a century. As of February 2013, the longest period of negative real returns from US equities was 16 years. But it was 19 years for global equities (and 37 for world ex-US), 22 for Britain, 51 for Japan, 55 for Germany and 66 for France. Such periods are much longer than most small investors would have the patience to wait.
I've pretty much stopped debating with friends about the merits of having a bond/cash cushion to soften a significant market pull back. They usually quote "Average S&P returns since 1926 are 10%; Aren't you enjoying this rally? and I'd rather be an owner than a lender" (Bond reference) I have the majority of my portfolio in equities but I've never forgotten the quote from William J. O'Neal, IBD, "All stocks are bad."
I think many of us have -mostly- enjoyed fantastic equity returns since the 1980s and see this as a given.
Maybe its true, but then maybe its not
For me the example of France is especially sobering.