Set forth below is the response that I wrote to a question put to me at my Beyond Buy-and-Hold column by Kathryn C at the Kathryn’s Conversations blog: Rob, do you mean “middle class” or just the average investor? I think you mean the average investor, not middle class. (we’re talking about how sophisticated an [...]
“I Have Come to Believe That God Put Me on Earth to Do This Work”
Published in April 27th, 2011
6 Comments
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Mar | May » | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | |
PassionSaving.com
-
- Home
- Start Me Up
- Saving Without Sacrifice
- Retire Different!
- The Turned-On Budget
- Return Predictor
- Risk Evaluator
- Scenario Surfer
- Strategy Tester
- Reality Checker
- Stock Drunk
- Banned at Motley Fool!
- Buy-and-Hold Is Dead
- The New Buy-and-Hold
- Investing for Humans
- Practical Dreamers
- The Self-Directed Life
- Heroes and Villains
- The Book I Read
- Contact Rob
Rob on the Internet
-
- Rob's Weekly Investing: The New Rules Column at the Death by 1,000 Papercuts Site
- Rob's Weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing Column at the Value Walk Site.
- Rob's Weekly Beyond Buy-and-Hold Column at the Out of Your Rut Site
- Rob's Articles at the Financial Highway Site
- Rob's Articles at the Balance Junkie Site
- Rob's Daily Caller Articles: (1) Can We Handle the Truth About Stock Investing?; (2) How We Invest Is a Political Question; (3) The Economic Crisis Is Trying to Tell Us Something (and We're Not Listening); (4) Facts Don't Matter; (5) Going Google Stupid; (6) How Much Transparency Can We Handle?; (7) Confessions of an Internet Troll; (8) Conservatives Fall Into a Trap by Blaming Obama for the Bad Economy; (9) Meet the New Media, Same as the Old Media; and (10) How Restoring Honor Will End the Economic Crisis
- Conservatives4Palin.com Article Titled Rob Bennett: Governor Palin's Emphasis on Personal Responsibility Is Key to Fixing Economy
- Humble Money Experts Are the Best Money Experts, (Rob's Article in the Integrative Advisor, the Journal of the Association for Integrative Financial and Life Planning)
- Google Knol #1: Why Buy-and-Hold Investing Can Never Work
- Google Knol #2: The Bull Market Caused the Economic Crisis
- Google Knol #3: Rob Bennett
- Google Knol #4 -- The First Retirement Calculator That Gets the Numbers Right
- Articles on the Return Predictor, the RIsk Evaluator, the Scenario Surfer and the Strategy Tester
- The Good Side of Stocks' Lost Decade and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries
- A Better and Safer Way to Invest in Stocks and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries
- The Economic Crisis Is the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries
- The Bankers Did Not Do This to Us! and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries
- Stock Volatility Kills! and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries
- The Risks of Buy-and-Hold and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries
- The Future of Investing and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries
- What the Stock Investing Experts Don't Want You to Know and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries
- Guest Blog Entry Compares Our Effort to Open the Internet to Honest Posting on Stock Investing with the Civil Rights Struggle of the Early 1960s
- Our Monster Thread (153 Comments!) on Whether Bill Bengen Should Correct His Retirement Study Now That He Acknowledges the Errors He Made In It
- Google Search Results for the Term "Valuation-Informed Indexing"
Rob’s Calculators
Favorite RobCasts
-
- I Know More About Investing Than John Bogle (and You Can Too!)
- The Coming Revolution in Investing Advice
- The Case Against Valuation-Informed Indexing
- Market Timing -- What Works and What Doesn\'t
- Passive Investing Is the Most Emotional Investing Approach of All
- When Stock Prices Fall, Where Does the Money Go?
- The Future of Investing
- Fear and Greed and Hope and Love
- Greenspan's Mistake
- Bogle and Valuations
- Investing News Makes Us Dumb
- The Internet Changes Everything
- Investing Ethics: An Oxymoron?
- When Stock Losses Are True Losses and When They Are Not
- It\'s Not a Conspiracy, It's Cognitive Dissonance
- They Used Our Natural Risk Aversion Against Us
- There Is No Free Lunch! Or Is There?
- Predicting Presidential Success Using P/E10
- RIsk Tolerance in the Real World
- Dumb Is Smart, "I Don't Know" Is Powerful
- You Won't Believe the Truth About Stock Investing Until You've Heard it 5,000 Times
- Confidence Limits, Logic Chains and Emotion Waves
- Financial Responsibility Breaks Down When Passive Investing Becomes Popular
- Cash on the Sidelines Often Disappears Into Nothingness
- The How-To of Valuation-Informed Indexing
- Stocks Are Less Risky Than Bonds
- Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires -- And Bull Markets!
- Cash Is a Strategic Asset Class
- Risk Without Risk
- Nine Valuation-Informed-Indexing Portfolio Allocation Strategies
- Why the Stock Market Does Not Set Prices Properly (Even Though Other Markets Do)
- Only Valuations Matter -- Everything Else Is Priced In
- Dollar Cost Averaging Is a Loser Strategy
- The Intrinsic Value of Stocks Is a Secret We Are Keeping from Ourselves
- The Candyland Hypothesis: Why Short-Term Timing Doesn\'t Work
- Low Stock Prices Are Better Than High Stock Prices
- John Bogle Says Valuation-Informed Indexing Can Work
- The Returns Sequence That Happens to Pop Up Makes a Difference
- True Diversification
- The Stock-Return Predictor
- Behavioral Finance 2.0
- 30 Investment Myths in 60 Minutes
- Volatility Is Optional
- The Investor's Scenario Surfer
- The Retirement Risk Evaluator
- Lawsuits, Etc.
- Common Return Patterns -- And What to Do When You See Them
- My Vision
- Why Conservatives Should Oppose the Continued Promotion of Buy-and-Hold Investing
- Why Liberals Should Oppose the Continued Promotion of Buy-and-Hold Investing
Favorite Articles
-
- The True Cause of the Current Financial Crisis Is Buy-and-Hold Investing
- Buy-and-Hold Investing Doesn't Work -- These Links Prove It!
- Buy-and-Hold Is Dead -- These Studies Prove It!
- Community Comments on Predicting Stock Returns
- The Experts Speak on the Risks of Holding Overvalued Stocks in Retirement
- Community Comments on Using Stock Data to Diminish Retirement Risk
- Using the Risk Evaluator to Develop Retirement Planning Strategies
- 20 Money Management Insights You'll Likely See Only Here
- 20 Dangerous Money Myths -- They Think We're Stupid!
- Why Passion Saving Works
- Rob Bennett\'s Favorite Saving Advice Sayings
- The Doctor Pepper of Money Sites
- The Taboo on Talking About Money Hurts Us
- Saving for Retirement Is a Dumb Idea
- How to Start Saving Money
- The Dark Side of Compounding Returns
- Unconventional Mid-Life Career Change Tips
- Fears of Those Who Retire Early
- The Late-Start Retirement Plan
- Eight Ways to Budget for Eight Budgeting Personalities
- Seven Types of Spending
- Ten Reasons for Paying Off the Mortgage
- How Did Commonsense Investing Become Controversial?
- The Case for Selling in a Stock-Market Downturn
- Stock Panic Up Close and Personal
- The Future of Behavioral Finance
- My Beef with Bull Markets
- Why Is Today's Investing Advice So Poor?
- If the Random Walk Is Real, the Efficient Market Isn't
- Passive Investing Is Dangerous
- Market Timing -- What Works and What Doesn't
- Investing Research and the Tricky Tricks Used to Trick You
- The Case Against Valuation-Informed Indexing
- Investing Discussion Boards Ban Honest Posting on Valuations!
- Internet Harassment By "Defenders" of the Conventional Retirement Studies
- 20 Investing Insights from the First 54 Months
- Community Comments on The Great Safe Withdrawal Rate Debate
- Bogle and Buffett Go Together Like Chocolate and Peanut Butter
- Investing Experts Are Politicians
- 8 Paths to Financial Independence
- Give Up Television and Grow Rich
- I'm So Bored with Financial Pornography
- The Meaning of Work -- A Love Song
- Financial Infidelity and Financial Intimacy
- Smart Vacations Recharge Your Batteries
- Rob Bennett's Weaknesses as a Money Advisor
- Boy Disease, and How Suze Orman Helps
- Rob Bennett -- What Kinda Guy?
Favorite Blog Entries
-
- Associate Professor Wade Pfau Has Contacted the Trinity Study Authors re the Analytical Errors in Their Safe Withdrawal Rate Study
- "The Wealth Management Industry Seems Intent on Containing This Discussion for Fear that Clients Might Discover the Emperor Has No Clothes"
- "I Would Never Deliberately Do Something to Hurt Someone's Pride or to Cause Someone to Lose Face"
- "You're Sitting on a Winning Lottery Ticket...I'd Do Anything to Have What You've Got"
- My E-Mail to Yale Professor Robert Shiller, Author of Irrational Exuberance
- Get Rich Slowly Forum Discusses My Google Knol on the Big Fail of Buy-and-Hold
- My E-Mail to Jason Zweig, Author of the Intelligent Investor Column
- My E-Mail to Justin Fox, Author of The Myth of the Rational Market
- "You Use a Simple Price-to-Earnings Ratio to Help People See the Fraud in the Market"
- Humble Money Experts Are the Best Money Experts
- "It Appears That I've Inadvertently Stumbled Into the Middle of a Religious War"
- "These People -- Good People -- Have Described Your Comments as "Spammy" and "Obnoxious"
- Bogle Says Valuation-Informed Indexing Can Work
- "My Hope Is to Persuade You to Steer the Indexing Revolution to a More Promising Path"
- "My Goal Is To Save What Is Good in the Passive Investing Package by Fixing What Is Bad in It"
- "Holy Toledo! This is Great Stuff" -- The New Coffeehouse Investor Author Bill Schultheis
- "The Delete Button
- "The Right of Contributors to Post Their Sincere Views Must Be Respected"
- "It's Informative, It's Based on Solid Data and It Provides Useful Results"
- "A Large Number of People Will Harm Themselves If They Do Anything Besides Being Passive"
- "An Attitude Born of a Profession That Found Much of Its Growth in the Middle of the 1982-1999 Era"
- "Just How Bad Would Things Have to Get Before You Guys Changed Your Advice?"
- My E-Mail to the Virginia Police re the Campaign of Terror Against Our Board Communities
- "I Want to Launch an Effort to Publicize the Ideas on the Internet"
- "Those Investing In Equities Hold Securities Whose Future Earning Power Is Completely Unpredictable"
- "A Lot of Planners Are Starting To Question Their Passive Investing Beliefs
- "I'm Quite Encouraged With John Russell's Results"
- "There Are Significant Risks Inherent In the Passive Investing Approach That Are Not Understood By Most
- "For People Who Like to Take a 30,000 Foot View of Investing, This Is a Very Handy Little Tool"
- "The Future Cannot Be Predicted Based on Historical Empirical Observations"
- "The Predictor Would Be Better Termed a Reporter"
- "There Is Always a Reasonably Diversified Subset of the Market with Below Average PEs"
- The Rob Bennett Challenge to Passive Investing Enthusiasts
- "I Have Much More Confidence in My Ability to Understand What Is Happening"
- The Bogleheads Wiki Statement on Safe Withdrawal Rates
- I Hope You Suffer
- The Community Toilet Is Overflowing
- Fear Strikes Out
- The Confession Box
- Our Employers Should Encourage Us to Move On
- The Naked Budget
- Putting a Human Face on the "Save the Retirements!" Story
- Internet Porn and Other Wrong Numbers
- The Exceedingly Strange Standards of Investing Research
- "Securities Markets Appear to Be At Least Partially Predictable Afterall"
- "The Truth Has a Way of Emerging Eventually"
- Why I Quote Song Lyrics in My Posts
- Financial WebRing Forum Entertains (Somewhat) Honest Discussion of Valuation-Informed Indexing
- "This Is What Investing Should Be -- Calculated, Deliberate, Confident, Informed and Simple"
- Joke
- Why Is Scott Burns Afraid of Me?
- Scott Burns Distances Himself from the New School SWR Approach
- Scott Burns: "The Whole Idea that There Is a New School of SWRs Reeks of Personal Aggrandizement"
- NYT Discovers P/E10
- Forbes Fires Back at the Goons
- The Terrible Truth About Cute Fuzzy Bunny
- Jack Bogle Started Out as a Little Boy
- You're Smarter Than the Experts
- New York Times Reports on Growing Disgust with the Littler Stinkers
- Non-Money Things You Can Learn By Keeping a Budget
- Jonathan Should Take a Tip from Dustin
- Ball of Confusion
- The Investing Establishment
- Uptight (Everything's Not Allright!)
- Bogle Meets Rocky
- Where the Monkees Went Wrong
Favorites/John’s Site
-
- They Got It Wrong
- Progress Reports on New School Research
- TIPS Table
- Always Insist on a Baseline
- The 4% Shocker
- Why P/E10?
- Building Blocks
- Using Stock-Return Predictions
- You Can't Count on 7%
- More Than a Number
- Rule of Thumb?
- New Standards for Financial Reporting
- Retirement Planning Insights
- Income Stream Insights
- Letters to the Editor
- Valuation-Informed Indexing
- David Dreman's Blockbuster
- Our Strong Theoretical Foundations
- The Logical Sequence
- Using All of the Data
- Paradoxes and Confusion
- The Stability of Estimates Based on Earnings Yield
- The Story Behind the Numbers
- Mean Reversion Theory
- Mean Reversions Occurs Faster When You Adjust for Valuations
- Stupid Assertions
- S&P500 Dividend Yields
- Why Dividends Are Better
- Why People Ignore Valuations
- The Wrong Lessons
- Denial Is Expensive
- Today's Skill
- Systems Engineering
- Historical Perspective of Benjamin Graham
- Applying P/E10 Outside of the S&P500
- S&P500 Returns
- S&P500 Return Sequences
- First Year Within a Decade with Returns Above 7%, 6%, 5%, and 4%
- Our Roots
Links That Matter
-
- Ten Bogus Investing Truths
- Study by Associate Professor Wade Pfau Showing That Long-Term Timing Provides Higher Returns at Reduced Risk
- Study by Associate Professor Wade Pfau Showing That Valuation-Informed Indexing Beat Buy-and-Hold in 102 of 110 Rolling 30-Year Time-Periods in the Historical Record
- Wall Street Journal Article Pointing Out That the Idea That Long-Term Market Timing Does Not Work Is a "Myth" of Stock Investing "That Will Not Die" Because "This Hoary Old Chestnut Keeps Clients Fully Invested" Even When It Is Contrary to Their Best Interests
- Wall Street Journal Article Pointing Out That" "This Ratio (P/E10) Has Been a Powerful Predictor of Long-Term Returns" and That "Valuation Is By Far the Most Important Issue for Investors"
- Michael Kitces (One of the Bravest of the Good Guys in This Field) Asks: "Who's Really at Risk When Avoiding Overvalued Stocks?"
- Financial Mentor Article Reporting on How Our Knowledge of How to Calculate Safe Withdrawal Rates Has Grown During the First Nine Years of The Great Safe Withdrawal Rate Debate
- Does the Trend Matter?
- Improving RIsk-Adjusted Returns Using Market-Valuation-Based Tactical Asset Allocation Strategies
- A Value Restoration Project Blog Post That Sums Up in Three Paragraphs All You Need to Know to Become a Highly Effective Investor
- Year 20 Annualized, Real, Total Return v. P/E10
- Year 10 Annualized, Real, Total Return v. P/E10
- Valuation-Informed Indexing Always Superior to Buy-and-Hold Over 10-Year Periods
- The Valuation-Informed Indexing Advantage
- What P/E10 Predicted vs. What Actually Happened
- Normal and Valuation-Adjusted Wealth Accumulation
- Valuation-Informed Indexers Can Retire Five Years Sooner
- Following Valuation-Informed Indexing Strategies Reduces Stock Investing Risk by 80 Percent
- S&P 500 Tracked by P/E10 Level
- Treasury Inflation-Protected Income Securities (TIPS) Table
- Best, Average and Worst Returns Since 1871
- Compound Annual Growth Rate Calculator
- Investing Through Time
- Mapping S&P 500 Performance
- S&P 500 at Your Fingertips
- S&P 500 Return Calculator
- Russell's Research
- Shiller's Data
- Safe Withdrawal Rate Research Group
Categories
Archives I
Get the Feed
People Are Talking
-
- "For Years, the Investment Industry Has Tried to Scare Clients Into Staying Fully Invested in the Stock Market at All Times, No Matter How High Stocks Go.... It's Hooey.... They're Leaving Out More Than Half the Story.... Anyone Who Followed the Numbers Would Have Avoided the Disaster of the 1929 Crash, the 1970s or the Past Lost Decade on Wall Street.... I Wonder How Many Stayed Fully Invested Because Their Brokers Told Them 'You Can't Time the Market.'" -- Brett Arends, Columnist for the Wall Street Journal, in an October 14, 2010, Column Titled "The Market Timing Myth"
- "The Wealth Management Industry Seems Intent on Containing This Discussion for Fear Clients Might Discover that the Emperor Has No Clothes. Those of Us Who Genuinely Want to Do Some Good on Behalf of Clients and Everyday Investors Have Our Work Cut Out for Us." -- Adam Butler, Director of Wealth Management and Portfolio Manager at Butler, Philbrick & Associates
- "There Are Time-Periods Where Stocks Are a Terriblle Addition to That Portfolio. Yet Inexplicably, We As Planners STILL tend to Suggest That It Is "'Risky' to Not Own Stocks When in Reality the Only Material Risk Is to Our Business and Ability to Keep Clients, NOT to the Client's Goal" -- Financial Planner Michael Kitces
- "Valuation-Informed Indexing Provides More Wealth for 102 of 110 of the Rolling 30-Year Time-Periods While Buy-and-Hold Did Better in Eight of the Periods." -- Wade Pfau, Associate Professor of Economics at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
- "This Seems to Me to Be a Fundamental Challenge to Some of the Most Basic Tenets of the Boglehead Paradigm." -- Poster at the Bogleheads Forum
- "You Want to be Very, Very Wary of Anything Connected with Rob Bennett, the Most Infamous Troll in the History of Investing Forums on the Internet." -- Alex Fract, owner of the Bogleheads.org Forum
- “I’ve Had My Fill of Those Long-Winded Posts that Include Distortions, Unsubstantiated Claims, Misquotes and Comments Taken Out of Context.” -- Mel Lindauer, Co-Author of The Bogleheads Guide to Investing
- "Rob: This Has Been One of the Most Insightful and Helpful Comments I Think Anyone Has Ever Posted. Thank You for This Lesson and for Sharing Your Knowledge on This Subject!" -- Owner of the My Money Design Blog
- "Valuation-Informed Investing and Passive Investing Share More of a Common Ancestry Than It Might Appear at First." -- Jacob, Owner of the Passive Investing Blog Carnival
- ""Big Moves Out of Stocks Should Not Be Done at All. But Tactical Asset Allocation — I Should Say Strategic Asset Allocation Rather Than Tactical — Can Be Done At Very Rare Times, So Rare and So Difficult to Observe, Maybe Six Times in an Investor’s Lifetime, Three Times When the Market Is Stupidly High and Three Times When Stupidly Low." -- Vanguard Founder John Bogle
- "A Fascinating Retirement Calculator" -- Financial Planner Michael Kitces
- "You’ve Accomplished Something Radical With Your Idea of Passion Saving -- "Money, Mission and Meaning" Talk Show Host Mark Michael Lewis
- "Every Detail Shows Rob's Respect for His Information and His Reader."--Audrey Owen, Owner of the Writer\'s Helper Site
- "The Your Money or Your Life Book for a New Generation" -- Dollar Stretcher Book Reviewer Beatrix Fernandez
- "A Newer School of Thought Believes That the Safe Withdrawal Rate Depends on How Stocks Are Priced at the Time You Begin Making Withdrawals" -- Dallas Morning News Columnist Scott Burns
- "Retirees Now Frequently Base Their Retirement Decisions on the Portfolio Success Rates Found in Research Such as the Trinity Study.... This Is Not the Information that Current and Prospective Retirees Need for Making Their Withdrawal Rate Decisions." -- Wade Pfau, Associate Professor of Economics at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
- "The P/E10 Tool Could Drastically Change How the Entire Investment Industry Operates and Measures Risk" -- Larry, a Site Visitor
- "New Research by Rob Bennett Shows That Even a 4% Withdrawal Rate Could Cause Failure If You Start Retirement When Stock Market Valuations Are High.” -- Bernard Kelly, Consultant
- "FuhGeDaBouDIt!" -- Four PIllars of Investing Author William Bernstein's Assessment of Whether Retirees Should Use the Numbers Generated by the Old School Safe Withdrawal Rate Studies to Plan Their Retirements
- "This Is a Very Handy Little Tool" -- Market Movers Blogger Felix Salmon
- "A Much Simpler Way to Bring the Valuation Issue to Focus" -- Blogger Karteek Narayanaswamy
- "It's Informative, It's Based on Solid Data and It Provides Useful Results" -- Political Calculations Blog
- "Meet Three Couples Who Left the Corporate World to Do the Kinds of Work That Satisfied Them" -- MSN Money Columnist Liz Pulliam Weston
- "I Like Rob's Fresh Views and Tips on the Subject of Saving Money" -- The Digerati Life Blog
- "This is Pretty Exciting" -- ABC News
- "A Very Solid Approach to Investing" -- Michael Harr, Founder of Walden Advisors
- "Rob Bennett Has Been on a Tear with One Outstanding RobCast After Another" -- John Walter Russell, Owner of the Early Retirement Planning Insights Site
- "It’s Time for a Different Way to Look at Investing, and Rob Is Onto Something Here." -- Kevin Mercadante, Owner of the Out of Your Rut Blog
- "This Is What Investing Should Be -- Calculated, Deliberate, Confident, Informed and Simple" -- Aaron Friday, Owner of the Aaron's Blob Blog
- "What Is It With Guys Named Rob? Longtime Index Agitator Rob Arnott Has Now Been Joined on These Pages by a Vanguard Diehard Agitator Named Rob Bennett." -- IndexUniverse.com Publisher Jim Wiandt
- "He Offers a Fresh New Perspective that Will Motivate You to Get on Track With a Solid Savings Plan" -- Lynn Terry, Click Newz Blog
- "While Browsing at www.PassionSaving.com the Other Day, I Discovered an Article Featuring Ten Unconventional Money-Saving Tips. Each of These Offers a New Way to See Money." -- Get RIch Slowly Blogger J.D. Roth
- "Is There a Way to Turn Saving Into Something Fun? Is There a Way to Make the Thrill (Yes, Thrill) of Saving Equal or Exceed the Thrill of Spending? If There Was, I Bet a Lot More of Us Would Do a Lot More Saving. I Found a Website Where This Basic Premise Is Explored in Great Depth." -- The Great WeiszGuy Blog
- "I Have Much More Confidence in My Ability to Understand What Is Happening....I Thank You for Your Public Service, and, In Another Dimension, for the Personal Courage It Took to Make It Happen." -- Elizabeth, Site Visitor
- "I Was Hooked on the Idea of [Passive] Index Indexing, But Something Inside Made Me Wonder "Too Good to Be True?" and "What's the Downside?" I Happened on to Your Site and Valuation-Informed Indexing Seems to Make Sense." -- Coleen, Site Visitor
- "The Evidence is Pretty Incontrovertible. Valuation-Informed Indexing...Is Everywhere Superior to Buy-and-Hold Over Ten-Year Periods. -- Norbert Schlenker, Co-Owner of the Financial WebRing Forum
- "Passion Saving Reads Like a Casual Conversation with a Likable Guy Who Wants Nothing More Than to Help Others Experience the Same Joy and Happiness He Has Found" -- Kara, a Passion Saving Reader
- "Your 'Secrets' Look Exactly Like Magic Tricks: Once Revealed, They Look So Simple, Yet You Need Somebody to Show You How It Works."--Kramerizio, Secrets of Retiring Early Reader
- "Rob's Da Man! Never in the History of the Diehards Forum Has One Poster, Always Making Civil and Well Thought-Out Posts, Managed to Irritate So Many Without Anyone Being Able to Articulate a Good Reason As to Why. -- Mephistopheles, Vanguard Diehards Poster
- "I’ve Been Surprised at How Controversial This Idea Is, but If Most People Are Buying and Holding, They Are Emotionally Invested in This Strategy." -- Jennifer Barry, Live Richly Blogger
- "The Findings for [Long-Term] Market Timing Are So Robust That It Hardly Matters How We Do It" -- Wade Pfau, Associate Professor of Economics at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
- "The Elegant Simplicity of His Ideas Throughout Warms the Heart and Startles the Brain" -- Tom Gardner, Co-Founder of the Motley Fool Site
- "Mr. Bennett Evidences an Unusual Skill....You'll Have to Buy a Copy....Extraordinary....A Massive Heap of Crap" -- John Greaney, Owner of the Retire Early Home Page Site
- "By Reading All the Information on Your Website I Was Able to Develop a Part of Me I Didn't Know I Would Be Able to Become" -- Javier, Site Visitor
- "Innovative Financial Thinking" -- No Limits, Ladies Blog
- "Knowledgeable" -- Hope to Prosper Blog
- "Holy Toledo! This Is Great Stuff!" -- The New Coffeehouse Portfolio Author Bill Schultheis
- "He Offers Down-to-Earth But Nevertheless Eye-Opening Insights About the Why and the How of Early Retirement" -- Secrets of Retiring Early Reader
- "Challenges Unfounded Assumptions" -- Bill Sholar, Founder of the Early Retirement Forum (Please See Bill's Blurb on the Back Cover of the Book)
- "Seminal" -- Retire Early Home Page Site Owner John Greaney (Pre-May 13, 2002, Version)
- "It’s Always Good to Read Something New That Challenges Your Way of Thinking." -- Invest It Wisely Blogger
- "Rob, Thanks for All of Your Articulate, Well-Written and Well-Reasoned Commentary" -- Elle, a Poster at the Joe Taxpayer Blog
- "Thanks, Rob. I love Seeing So Many Personal Finance Bloggers Who Offer Such High Quality Content on Their Own Sites Come Here to Weigh In [on Your Ideas]." -- Married (with Debt) Blogger
- "A Ton of Tremendously Useful Content" -- Network Abundance Radio
- "Your Enthusiasm Is Infectious" -- Ruth, A Passion Saving Reader
- "I Woke Up at 4:00 am and Stared at the Wall for 20 Minutes....Thank You for Doing What You Do" -- Tasha, A Site Visitor
- "It Might Just Give You a New Way of Looking at Saving" -- Kevin Surbaugh, Owner of the Debt Free 4Ever Blog
- "Staying Too Long in a Job Where You Don’t Feel Relevant Takes a Toll, Said Rob Bennett, Who Worked for Years in a Well-Paying Corporate Communications Job Where He Didn’t Have Enough to Do" -- The New York Times
- "You Have Started One of the Most Interesting and Stimulating Discussions This Board has Seen in a Long Time" -- Poster at Motley Fool Boards
- "A Respected Author and Commentator, Mr. Bennett has Dedicated Himself to Educating Average Investors to Avoid the Most Common Errors" -- Liberty Watch Site
- "It Is Obvious that Rob, in Attempting to Identify New Safe Withdrawal Rate Strategies...Is Goring Your Ox. If Rob Improves on [the] Safe Withdrawal Rate Methodology, the Implication Is Clear: You Are All, Metaphorically, Out of Business" -- Poster at Vanguard Diehards Board
- “I Applaud His Effort to Inject Another Piece of Objectivity Into a Very Complex, Highly Subjective Topic: Making Money in the Market" -- Poster at Vanguard Diehards Board
- "Rob Bennett, the Author of a Book Called Passion Saving, Thinks the Saving Problem Is Partly One of Packaging. So He Prefers to Couch it in the Language of Freedom." -- The Wall Street Journal
- "I've Gone from Shattered Dreams of Early Retirement to Glimpses of Hope to Reassurance from Quantitative Research" -- Patricia, A Site Visitor
- "Some of the Most Helpful and Insightful Market Discussions on the Web Take Place on These Pages" -- A Poster at the Safe Withdrawal Rate Research Group
- "Rob is the Only Person I Know (If Only via Message Board) Who has Completely Opted Out of Participation in the Stock Market Bubble. And You Know What? He Has Benefited Immensely from Doing So." -- Poster at Motley Fool
- "Makes the Subject of Saving Edgy and Fresh" -- Maxine, a Passion Saving Reader
- "This Tip Comes from Rob Bennett of the Finance Site PassionSaving.com" -- Lifehacker.com
- "I LOVE This Article and Am Proud to be Publishing It!" -- Chuck Yanikoski, Editor of Integrative Advisor and Executive Director of The Association of Integrative Financial and Life Planning
- "Rob….Wow…..Your Response Sent Shivers Up the Ol’ Pilgrim Spine." -- Neal Frankie, Owner of the Wealth Pilgrim Blog
- "I Have Counseled My Clients to Allocate a Percentage to Equities Based Upon Market Valuations....I Feel Like I've Found a Kindred Spirit. Fascinating Web Site." -- Tom Behlmer, Nevada City, CA Financial Planner
- "“After a Quick Look at Your Site, I Realized That Our Web Site Is Founded on a Very Similar Understanding of the Stock Market and Investing in General.... A Simple Age-Based Asset Allocation Formula Is Not Appropriate, and Any Sensible Asset-Allocation Formula Should Combine Both Age/Investment Horizon and Market Valuation Levels.” -- Owner of the www.RationalInvestor.biz Site.
- "Canadian Finance Blog Had a Guest Post This Week from Rob Bennett, Where He Discusses the Benefits of Value-Informed Indexing, Which I Find Very Intriguing." -- Owner of Sustainable Personal Finance Blog.
- "I Can Appreciate Rob's Comments.... Buy-and-Hold? For the Most Part, a Long Obsolete Theory." -- Certified Financial Planner Neal Deutsch
- "Utterly Brilliant!" -- Secrets of Retiring Early Reader
- "Your Website Is So Enjoyable That It Is Keeping Me From My Research As I Am So Excited That I Have Found Such a Valuable Resource." -- Stuart, A Site Visitor
- "What We're Talking About Here Really...Is Empowerment." -- Wanderer, a Poster at the Motley Fool's Retire Early Board.
- "The Stock Market Valuation Tool on the PassionSaving.com Site...Is Based upon the Principle that Over the Long Term, Stock Market Prices Will Reflect the Ten-Years Earnings Growth of the Underlying Companies. While There May be Blips Here and There, Ultimately Prices Will Return Back to a Common Growth Pattern." -- The Links.com Review of The Stock-Return Predictor
- "Rob’s Arguments in Favor of Value Investing Actually Make a Lot of Sense In a Way That Should Make Any Rational Buy-and-Holder Uncomfortable." -- Pop Economics Blog
- "What I Don't Understand Is How Rob Can Correspond in Such a Sweet and Polite Way -- Yet He Irritates Me to No End!" -- A Poster at the Financial WebRing Forum
- "You Go About It in a Manner that is Catastrophically Unproductive by Adding Missionary Zeal that Inflates Your Importance and Demeans Others. The Whole Idea That There is a New School of Safe Withdrawal Rates Reeks of Personal Aggrandizement." -- Dallas Morning News Columnist Scott Burns
- "Inflammatory" -- The Morningtar.com Site Administrator
- “What Warren Buffett Did Was Essentially Quite Close to What Rob Bennett Has Written.... Though We Often Hear Only His ‘Buy-and-Hold Forever’ Mantra, Warren Buffett Has in Fact Been Cleverly Employing the Equivalent of the Rational Investing Model, Incorporating Long-Term Market Timing Based on Valuation of the Market in His Allocation of Money to Stocks.” -- Investing Notes Blog
- "This Report Offers A Fresh Perspective That Is Rarely Found In Other Financial Literature." -- Secrets of Retiring Early Reader
- "Rob Bennett Makes the Claim That Market Timing Based on Aggregate P/E Ratios Can Be a Far More Effective Strategy Than Passive Investing Over Long Horizons (Ten Years or More.) I Am Not in a Position to Evaluate This Claim Empirically But It Is Consistent With Shiller's Analysis and I Can See How It Could Be True." -- Rajiv Sethi, Professor of Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University
- "Retiring Early Was A Concept I Did Not Entertain. I Was Going to Retire at 65 After Putting in 40 Years. Now I Am Glad To Say That All That Has Changed." -- Secrets of Retiring Early Reader
- "In a Couple of Days, I Had Devoured the Entire Book." -- A Passion Saving Reader
- "FIRECalc May Not Be the Last Word on Safe Withdrawal Rates" -- Former Wall Street Journal Columnist Jonathan Clements
- "A Safe Withdrawal Rate Is Very Dependent on the Valuation of the Stockmarket at the Retirement Date" -- The Economist Magazine
- "It Seems to Me That Some on This Board Feel Threatened by the Arrival of Rob and His Ideas. They Feel a Threat to Their Perceived Elite Status." -- Motley Fool Poster
- "You've Got to Say One Thing for Rob. He Has NEVER Lowered Himself to Ad Hominen Attacks -- Subliminal or Otherwise -- on Any Other Person on This Board. Not Once. Ever. At Least Give Him Credit for That." -- Motley Fool Poster
- "I Have Never Seen Rob Show Incivility. No Matter What. Truly Amazing. Either He Is Really the Output of an Artificial Intelligence Program, or the Man's on the Way to Becoming a Saint!" -- Early Retirement Forum Poster
- "You're the Politest Guy on the Internet. Such a Soft Touch!" -- Jonathan Lewis
- "Props to Keeping Your Cool in the Married with Debt Article. Best of Luck Combating Buy-and-Hold." -- Money Mamba Blogger
- "I Caught Up [at the Financial Bloggers Conference] With a Fairly Controversial Financial Blogger Named Rob Bennett, Who Struck Me As the Nicest Guy Around. There -- I Said It!" Digerati Life Blogger
- "Mr. Bennett, You Are Spot on About Integrating Some Type of Valuation Filter to One's Stock Allocation. Astute Investors Have Incorporated Some Type of "Valuation Timing" Into Their Investment Decisions Since the Beginning of Time." -- Poster at the Psy-Fi Blog
- "I Have Read Everything I Can About Valuation-Informed Indexing, and I Agree With You That Buy-and-Hold Passive Investing Is Extremely Problematic... I Value and Respect the Passion, Hard Work and Research That You Have Put Into This Very Important Issue... I Think What You Are Doing Has Huge Value." -- Carl Richards, Owner of Clearwater Asset Management and Author of the Behavior Gap Blog
- "The World of Personal Finance Blogging Needs More Rob Bennetts. He’s Passionate. He’s Intelligent. He’s Writing Things That Go Against the Grain." -- Financial Uproar Blog
- "His Insights Into What Is Really Going On In The Stock Market Are Quite Compelling." -- Future Storm Blog
- "It Was an Epiphany...Valuation-Informed Indexing Beats Buy-and-Hold Over Most Long-Term Holding Periods at Much Lower Volatility." -- Sam, a Site Visitor
- "I Am Intrigued by Your Ideas" -- Adam Butler, Director and Wealth Management & Portfolio Manager at Butler, Philbrick & Associates.
- "I Read the Book and I Loved It. The Philosophy Resonated with Me. I Am a Believer in Your Concept." -- Dr. Peter Weiss, author of More Health, Less Care
- "If Your Investment Ideas Can Do for Investing What Weston Price’s Ideas Did for Food, You’ve Got Our Attention" -- Owners of the End Times Hoax Blog
- "I Have Looked at His Website and Reviewed His Research and Find It Both Compelling and Completely Logical and Common-Sense-Based" -- Apex, a Poster at the Free Money Finance Blog
- " I Do Agree That If Investors Paid More Attention to Valuation, We Would Have Fewer Boom-and-Bust Cycles.... The Investing Institutions Are Definitely Going to Avoid It Because It Will Affect Their Income. -- Bret, Hope to Prosper Blogger
- "Must Read As Per My Viewpoint For All Value Seekers..." -- Ajit Vakil, Value Investing Congress Member
- "His Approach Is Both Mathematically Rigorous and Easy to Understand." -- Online Investing AI Blog
- "There Is Nothing More Difficult to Plan, More Doubtful of Success, Nor More Dangerous to Manage Than a New System. For the Initiator Has the Enmity of All Who Would Profit By the Preservation of the Old Institution and Merely Lukewarm Defenders in Those Who Gain By the New Ones." -- Machiavelli
- "I Am Not Afraid. I Was Born to Do This." -- Joan of Arc
- "First They Ignore You, Then They Ridicule You, Then They Fight You, Then You Win." -- Ghandi
- "I Am Also Extremely Grateful to Rob Bennett for Motivating This Topic and Contributing His Experience and Encouragement" -- Wade Pfau, Associate Professor of Economics at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, in His Recent Study Showing That "[Long-Term] Market-Timing Strategies Provide Comparable Returns As a 100 Percent Stocks Buy-and-Hold Strategy but with Substantially Less Risk. Meanwhile, [Long-Term] Market Timing Provides Comparable Risks and the Same Average Asset Allocation as a 50/50 Fixed Allocation Strategy, but With Much Higher Returns.”
- "Rob Bennett Was an Early Pioneer in 3rd Generation Modeling by Advocating (Through Various Online Forums) that Withdrawal Rates Must Be Adjusted for Market Valuations Consistent with Research by Campbell and Shiller" -- Todd Tresidder, Financial Mentor Blogger
- "I Am Fascinated by the Growing Body of Research that Revolves Around the P/E10 Ratio...Published at Advisior Perspectives as Well as Independently and in Professional Journals by Numerous Researchers: Robert Shiller, Doug Short, Wade Pfau, Michael Kitces, John Hussman, Crestmont Research, Jim Otar, the team of Mike Philbrick and Adam Butler, Rob Bennett and others." -- Kay Conheady in Advisor Perspectives
- " The Calculators on Your Site Are Great Resources for All of Us. It Still Amazes Me As Well How So Many People Can Say 'Valuations Matter' Yet in the Next Breath, They'll Say That We Should Ignore Valuations" -- John Marlowe, Logistics Analyst at Hess Corporation
- "Rob Is an Enigma in the Personal Finance World. He Has Very Interesting Theories on Safe Withdrawal Rates and Buy-and-Hold Investing Based on Market Valuations. But He Weaves a Tale Which Makes the Stories of Alexander Litvinenko and Gareth Williams Seem Somehow Tame by Comparison." -- Don't Quit Your Day Job Blogger
- "Beyond Awesome" -- Larry, a Site Visitor
Blogroll
- Arbor Asset Allocation Model Portfolio (AAAMP) Blog
- Balance Junkie
- Barbara Friedberg Personal FInance
- Bogleheads
- Buck Inspire
- Budgets Are Sexy
- Canadian Finance Blog
- Canadian Financial DIY
- Clever Dude
- Consumerism Commentary
- Death by 1,000 Papercuts
- DIY Investor
- Don't Quit Your Day Job
- Early Retirement Extreme
- Everyday Tips and Thoughts
- Financial Highway
- Financial Samurai
- Financial Success for Young Adults
- Financial Uproar
- Free From Broke
- Free Money Finance
- Free Money Wisdom
- Frugal Dad
- Generation X Finance
- Get Rich Slowly
- Goon Central
- Greg Mankiw
- Hope to Prosper
- Invest It Wisely
- Investorzblog
- Juggling Dynamite
- Kathryn's Conversations
- Lazy Man and Money
- Len Penzo
- Live Richly
- Married (with Debt)
- Modern Toolmaking
- MomVesting
- Money Mamba
- Moolanomy
- My Journey to Millions
- My Life ROI
- My Personal Finance Journey
- Nerd's Eye View
- Observations and Notes
- Of Two Minds
- Online Investing AI
- Out of Your Rut
- Own the Dollar
- Political Calculations
- Preparation Station
- Rahiv Sethie
- Retire Happy
- Stock Trend Investing
- Sustainable Personal Finance
- The American Interest
- The Digerati Life
- The Psy-Fi Blog
- The Smarter Wallet
- Value Walk
- Watson Inc
- Weakonomics
- Wealth Pilgram