Down goes the Dow

YTD ETF NAV

SPY +8.6%

GLD +11.6%

Just saying. wrote:

Uncle Beemer wrote:

Wow.

Just when you thought people could be no dumber...

Hey, you're the one who asked the question.

I stand corrected....as we see someone get dumber still.

agip wrote:

fun read - a couple years ago someone saying buy gold! Sell your stocks yesterday!

just before a huge stock rally.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5976736

What were the experts saying in mid 2008?

All the "financials advisers" I know took a massive bath in 2008-2009.

Don't be so hard on yourself. There are no dumb questions here.

Gold Shoulders wrote:

YTD ETF NAV

SPY +8.6%

GLD +11.6%

Life is good!

Richie Rich wrote:

Gold Shoulders wrote:

YTD ETF NAV

SPY +8.6%

GLD +11.6%

Life is good!

Life may be about to get worse for passive stock investors:

MTD ETF NAV

SPY -1.67%

GLD +1.73%

Joekim Snodgrass wrote:

Frank N. Berry wrote:

You just proved my point.

No point to prove if you like ten years of going nowhere with interim losses of 50-60%.

So why then did you feel the need to prove it?

Gold Shoulders wrote:

Richie Rich wrote:

Life is good!

Life may be about to get worse for passive stock investors:

MTD ETF NAV

SPY -1.67%

GLD +1.73%

Key words: "may be". It will crash, but no one knows when.

Well, the history of the markets says a dollar invested today is worth the same ten years from now, with interim losses of 50-60%. If you are OK with those odds, so be it.

Nicky wrote:

Gold Shoulders wrote:

Life may be about to get worse for passive stock investors:

MTD ETF NAV

SPY -1.67%

GLD +1.73%

Key words: "may be". It will crash, but no one knows when.

History also tells us that a dollar invested today will likely be worth significantly more in 20 years, but never less.

Just saying. wrote:

Don't be so hard on yourself. There are no dumb questions here.

Plenty of dumb answers though. And you ought to be a little bit harder on yourself.

It didn't work for investors in the Nikkei. Of course that could never happen here.

The Oracle wrote:

History also tells us that a dollar invested today will likely be worth significantly more in 20 years, but never less.

Down Goes The Dow: 1929–1949: Bear market. The stock market crash of 1929 precedes the Great Depression. The Dow plunges to 41.22 (theoretical intra-day low of 40.56) on July 8, 1932, thus erasing 33 years of gains, in just under three years. Although cyclical bull markets occur in the 1930s and 1940s, the index takes 22 years to surpass its previous highs.

Nostrademus wrote:

It didn't work for investors in the Nikkei. Of course that could never happen here.

The Oracle wrote:

History also tells us that a dollar invested today will likely be worth significantly more in 20 years, but never less.

Sorry. Should have specified I was talking about the S&P and its large cap predecessor.

The Oracle wrote:

Nostrademus wrote:

It didn't work for investors in the Nikkei. Of course that could never happen here.

Sorry. Should have specified I was talking about the S&P and its large cap predecessor.

Sorry same result going back to 1929-1949.

From 1928 through 2014, the S&P 500's compound rate of return was 9.8%, enough to transform a $100 investment at the start of 1928 into $346,261 over 87 years.

Given enough time, such a return would almost certainly be sufficient to fund a comfortable retirement.

Looking through the eyes of a young investor with 40 or more years ahead, I studied every 40-year period during that time (there were 48 of them). The worst performing period yielded a compound return of 8.9%. The best was a compound return of 12.5%.

James KG wrote:

Between 1926 and 2016, there have been 72 periods of 20 calendar years (that is, December 31, 1925 to December 31, 1945; December 31, 1926 to December 31, 1946, and so on). Never has Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index or its large-capitalization predecessor recorded a loss over any of those 20-year stretches, and in more than half of them the average annual gain was in double-digit percentages.

I want to check your data, what was the large-capitalization index predecessor?

The Composite Index, of course.