I’ve posted Entry #70 to my weekly Beyond Buy-and-Hold column at the Out of Your Rut site. It’s called Why I Don’t Pull Punches in My Discussions With Buy-and-Holders.
Juicy Excerpt: But my goal is to bury Buy-and-Hold 30 feet in the ground, where it can do no further harm to humans and other living things. I would like to see all of the experts in this field endorsing Valuation-Informed Indexing, which I view as the investing strategy of the future. I look forward to the day when The Stock-Selling Industry is spending hundreds of millions of dollars promoting investing strategies that work.
What are the chances that those things are going to happen if I stop speaking out strongly in opposition to Buy-and-Hold or do so less frequently? I think it is safe to say that the chances are pretty darn small. If I follow the advice of my Buy-and-Hold friends, I will be more popular. But I will also be ineffectual! I will not achieve my goals. I can see how that sounds good from their point of view but I am not able to see how it could be seen as a good thing from mine.
Evidence Based Investing says
But I will also be ineffectual! I will not achieve my goals.
But you are currently ineffectual and have not achieved your goals. In fact you could say that you have been “catastrophically unproductive”.
Rob says
In some way “yes”, in some ways “no”, Evidence.
The Campaign of Terror has been the ugliest and longest smear campaign in the history of the internet, by a factor of 50. We have seen boards destroyed. We are facing years of litigation. We are in an economic crisis. We have seen boards and blogs and big-name experts in the field compromise their integrity. All sorts of awful, smelly stuff.
But we are also close to burying Buy-and-Hold 30 feet in the ground, where it can do no further harm to humans and other living things. Once Buy-and-Hold is only part of our past and no longer part of our future, there is no limit on what we can all accomplish together. We have 30 years of powerful insights on how stock investing works to learn about together.
I’m pretty darn excited about that part of the story. I of course regret all the ugliness and have spoken out in opposition to it in strong terms. I will continue to do so. But I am a big believer in the idea that glass is half full.
In days to come, we will all be obtaining far higher returns from stocks at greatly diminished risk. Can you tell me again what the downside to these 10 years of discussions might be?
Rob
Evidence Based Investing says
“In days to come, we will all be obtaining far higher returns from stocks at greatly diminished risk”
Your inability to understand capital markets is profound.
Rob says
Perhaps.
But then you are one of the ones who say that there is no need to correct a retirement study that gets the numbers wildly wrong. So I think it would be fair to say that you haven’t exactly gotten it all figured out either.
Buy-and-Hold is in the process of causing us all more financial pain than we have ever suffered together as a nation of people. As the pain grows deeper, I believe that there are going to be more and more Buy-and-Holders willing to acknowledge that perhaps they didn’t figure out every last thing there is to know about stock investing back in 1974.
When we open our hearts and minds to learning new things, we learn new things. And we become a richer, happier, less angry people.
Check out the history books, Evidence. This isn’t the first time that this sort of thing has happened. In fact, I think a case can be made that, as soon as you hear someone say he has it all figured out, it would be a good idea to start entertaining doubts as to the message that that particular person is pushing.
If you knew it all, you wouldn’t be so defensive.
I don’t claim to know it all. I acknowledge that I could be wrong. I say that we need to begin having discussions about the things that we obviously got wrong so that we can begin moving forward together once again.
Hate is not the answer, Evidence. Love is the answer. I am pretty darn confident that I am right re at least that one.
I’m sure of it!
Rob