I’ve posted a Guest Blog Entry at the Free From Broke blog. It’s called A Better and Less Risky Way to Invest in Stocks.
Juicy Excerpt: Let’s return for a moment to our discussion of cars and cameras and computers and comic books. If you were in the car business and you had somehow persuaded millions of your customers that cars were worth buying at any price imaginable, would you want the word to get out that this was nonsense?
You wouldn’t. You would want to keep the realities hushed up. The academic research has been showing for 30 years now that valuations affect long-term returns. The Stock-Selling Industry has continued spending hundreds of millions promoting Buy-and-Hold. It’s a good deal for them. Just not for you!
Juicy Question/Comment #1: I have seen your stuff for years and you have even guest posted on my blog years ago, but I don’t get why the passion. You think you have the answer (and I am not even disagreeing with you), why fight everyone? Why not just keep the idea quiet and make your millions off investing?
Juicy Question/Comment #2: I’m hearing you on a lot of fronts Rob (and I’ve seen where commenters will follow your work online just to dispute it), but is Buy and Hold really the cause of the economic crisis?
Juicy Question/Comment #3: Wow, Rob … that is definitely an intriguing post. You have really strong opinions on the matter for sure! I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone post several comments on a blog that are actually longer than their original article!
Juicy Question/Comment #4: I met Tom Gardner of the Motley Fool not long ago and he says getting around your emotions is one of the big obstacles in investing (or at least he said something similar to that). He also mentioned that one of the things that makes Buffett great (and Buffett says this too) is being able to control his emotions.
Craig says
Thanks again for the informative article! I loved the conversations it started.
Rob says
It cheers my Saturday morning to hear you say that, Craig (Craig is the owner of the Free From Broke blog).
Please understand that by no stretch of the imagination has this been a one-man effort. John Walter Russell handled the numbers side for eight years; I never could have done any of the statistical work because I am just too weak in that area. And there have been hundreds in the Retire Early and Indexing discussion-board communities who have made important contributions. And of course all of this builds on work done by the experts who developed the Buy-and-Hold Model. They merit our gratitude and respect and affection as well.
Community Rules!
Rob