I’ve posted Entry #276 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called How I Rationalized My Belief in Buy-and-Hold for Six Years.
Juicy Excerpt: I knew that the safe withdrawal rate studies did not contain adjustments for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. I told myself that it didn’t matter because valuations probably don’t make that big a difference (I was of course careful not to check whether this is actually so or not). Or I told myself that at least the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies were better than most non-Buy-and-Hold retirement studies (that was so but they of course would have been even better yet if valuation adjustments were added). Or I told myself that the people promoting Buy-and-Hold were smarter than me (true) and must have known about aspects of the question that I wasn’t aware of (this one turned out not to be true once I got around to investigating the matter).
Anonymous says
I think you have rationalized MANY things in the last two decades.
Rob says
There’s no doubt but that I have, Anonymous. We all do.
The worst of it is that we don’t see it when we are the ones doing it. We often see it in others but rarely in ourselves.
I wish you all good things.
Rob