Shadox at the Money and Such blog recently posted a Guest Blog Entry by Schroeder, a regular at John Greaney’s Goon Central board. It was called A Critique of Valuation-Informed Indexing.
Juicy Excerpt: A few weeks ago I published a guest post by Rob of A Rich Life. In doing so, it appears that I inadvertently stumbled into the middle of a religious war. Schroeder, a critic of Rob’s, has asked me to post the critique which follows, and having read it, I thought I would share it with my readers and let you all make up your own opinions.
Lots of questions and answers in the comments section. Some very good stuff, some Goon stuff.
Juicy Excerpt #1: I’ve tried. I’ve really tried. But I can’t get past the flawed premise. The premise I refer to is “that it makes sense”. From centuries of experience we know that our intuition about the way things work is not a reliable measure of how things actually work.
Juicy Excerpt #2: I also take issue with your recent statement that “Passive Investing can never work in the real world.” That’s just silly. We’ve seen it work in the real world. Additionally, I’d argue that anyone with a “busted retirement” was not following proper allocation and rebalancing strategies.
Juicy Excerpt #3: To be honest, I fail to see what the big fight is about. What’s wrong with someone saying he believes indexing is an incomplete theory? You disagree, Do your own thing. There are so many people giving investment advice. There are people peddling penny stocks and active (and extremely expensive) mutual funds. Do you attack everyone who gives investment tips you disagree with, with such vengeance?
John Walter Russell says
Rob,
That is quite a discussion.
It is amazing how people will struggle to resist the obvious.
One thing that struck me was that there was no thought of locking in favorable bond rates, especially TIPS, when valuations were high. Instead: always treat the fixed income portion as a trading vehicle.
Have fun.
John Walter Russell
Rob says
It’s all about learning how to pronounce The Three Magic Words.
After that, it’s downhill sledding.
Rob