The Big Picture blog early this morning posted an article reporting on Academic Researcher Wade Pfau’s research showing the superiority of Valuation-Informed Indexing over Buy-and-Hold. The report is titled: Buy-and-Hold is Dead (and Never Worked in the First Place).
Juicy Excerpt: Attorney, tax expert and financial writer Rob Bennett told us…”The thing that I have done that no one before me has done is to explain the practical IMPLICATIONS of Shiller’s findings. Even Shiller has never done this…. Shiller and many others have been keeping their mouths shut about the practical implications of his theory for three decades now.” Bennett’s website provides endorsements for his stock timing theories and argues that the prevailing Buy-and-Hold dogma helped to cause the financial crisis.
After seeing the report, I sent the following words to Wade:
Wade:
I hope things have been going well with you. I think of you often. I miss talking things over with you!
I am of course continuing my work to spread the word re your breakthrough research on Valuation-Informed Indexing and on the true cause of the economic crisis. An article was posted early this morning at The Big Picture blog that reports on the essential points:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/11/is-there-a-better-way-to-allocate-stocks-thasn-buy-hold/
I’d be grateful to know your thoughts. My thought is — You need to get to work finding a journal for the follow-up research on VII that you told me about! I noted in my first comment on the discussion thread for the article (the comment has not yet appeared at the site) that you would be thrilled to get back to work on that paper if you were given some encouragement. Please consider these words of mine as encouragement that you direct some energies to this important project! Soon! Today! Yesterday!
I also wanted to share with you the words that I sent to the author of the article when he showed me a draft version yesterday night. Thoughts of your good work (and the good work of John Walter Russell and John Bogle and Robert Shiller and so many others) came flooding into my brain when I read the words of the article. Here is the text of my e-mail:
George:
If you have followed Bob Dylan’s career, you know that he has always been a smart-aleck in his dealings with the press. He gave a clue why in some words he put forward after he wrote the first volume of his autobiography and read the reviews of it. He said that those reviews brought him to tears. Most of the people who reviewed his records were not musicians and thus were not able to appreciate the struggles he was overcoming in producing the records. Many of the people who reviewed his autobiography had written books of their own and thus “got” what he was trying to do. The reviews of his autobiography were the first reviews that he fully respected.
That’s the feeling I experience reading your words. What’s different about your write-up is that it shows that you appreciate the scope and significance of the project. That’s the thing that very few others get. It almost brings me to tears to see that after ten years of work someone is seeing how big a deal this is and helping me get the word out to the millions of people who need to hear the message.
<
You of course have also done very important work, my old friend. Please take a bow!
I will ask my boys to say a prayer for you. My understanding is that God listens with special care to the prayers of children.
And, as John Walter Russell used to regularly advise us all — Have fun!
Rob
Addendum: The article now appears at the ZeroHedge.com site and at the WashingtonsBlog.com site. The Financial Times links to the article at its “Alphaville/Further Reading” section, referring to Valuation-Informed Indexing as “An Alternative to Buy-and-Hold.”
WP says
Congrats Rob,
It’s your finest hour.
I hope you can learn a lesson from this. The blogger completely bypassed ‘the Wade Pfau story’ and wrote solely about the underlying investment ideas. In this regard, I’m glad to see his post.
Your 1,000 email campaign probably would have been a lot more effective had you stuck to the issues that the blogger discussed, rather than turning it into a personal vendetta against me. No one likes to see a negative campaign.
I told you that after a brief initial concern, I was not intimidated by any alleged threats, and I wasn’t lying about it. The problem is that you dismiss any disagreement with you as being driven by fear about ‘goons’.
You are being nice to me now, and so it makes me look mean if I don’t reciprocate, but remember that just the other day you were advocating that I be sent to jail. And there is still the matter that you violated my privacy by posting my email messages. What am I supposed to say?
You want the follow up study. I already told you that I decided to include the rolling period results into that paper which was published in Applied Financial Economics last August. Anything else I do on the subject would just be incremental fill-in-the-holes type of stuff that I would not be able to publish anywhere, and given the shortage of time we all face in our lives, this just isn’t a very high priority.
Seriously, be realistic. If someone is not at all persuaded by the already published study, then it won’t do any good to show more and more results for the same basic thing.
Nonetheless, I am actually working on a different type of followup study with someone using valuations. One that is more connected to retirement income. We are hoping to get going with that in December.
Rob, finally, if you really do care about the topic of valuations, and not just your own personal aggrandizement, then please try to trust my judgment and stop harassing me all the time. Productivity isn’t just measured by time spent engaged in an activity, but by the overall results. While I can never spend as much time as you writing about valuations, I was able to get a mention about the link between withdrawal rates and valuations into the print editions of the Economist and the Wall Street Journal, and one of my articles on this issue won the Journal of Financial Planning’s editor’s choice award for the article from 2011 which had the biggest impact on the financial planning profession. So even if you do not care for my methods, it is hard for you to argue that I’m not making a contribution.
Did you know that in the last Financial Planning Association survey, something like 30% of planners say that they consider valuations when advising clients on an appropriate withdrawal rate?
Though I think it was partly an odd historical circumstance that the 4% rule suddenly popped up out of nowhere and was in contradiction to a long line of existing research called lifecycle finance (at least when used to argue rates up rather than to argue them down), cheers to you for putting 2 and 2 together in your early retirement planning online community and figuring out that something was amiss. This is mainstream now. Welcome to 2012.
Rob says
Thanks much for taking time out of your day to post your thoughts here, Wade. It does my heart good to be able to talk to you up close and personal once again. I hope that it would be fair to say that we are friends again.
I will respond to the various points you make in your comment in follow-up responses.
Rob
Rob says
It’s your finest hour.
And yours.
And John Walter Russell’s.
And John Bogle’s.
And Robert Shiller’s.
And America’s.
No?
We’re all in this boat together, Wade. I have worked this matter hard for ten years now. But you put in a lot of good work too. And Bogle obviously laid the foundation for all I have done. And Russell knocked himself out helping us all for eight years without earning so much as a dime in return.
There are lots of people who should be walking to the front of the stage and taking a bow today.
I only hope that they all realize that and do indeed step forward rather than remaining back in the shadows because of a misplaced and unfortunate fear about what some will say of them if they step forward.
This is the most important breakthrough in our understanding of how stock investing works ever achieved in history, Wade. There is lots and lots and lots of credit to go around.
I’m up for a prime rib and pitcher of beer with you to celebrate. Please just let me know the time and place and I am there, my good man.
Rob
canyon wanderer says
you’re an attorney? what law school? when did you pass the Bar? in what state?
Rob says
I hope you can learn a lesson from this. The blogger completely bypassed ‘the Wade Pfau story’ and wrote solely about the underlying investment ideas.
What would the lesson be, Wade?
I sent the blogger an e-mail with a link to my article on The Wade Pfau Story. He wrote me back asking whether that should be the focus of his article. I said that that particular article focused on the political side of the question but that there were other aspects to the question that in an ultimate sense were more important. I suggested that he look at The Stock-Return Predictor to learn more about the “how to” aspect. I pointed him to the “About” section of my site so that he would know the history of my ten years of development of the VII concept and thereby would become better able to write about the economic theory aspects of the question.
I HATE the political side of this, Wade. I hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. As you course have known going back to my first e-mail to you, in which I implored you not to engage in defamation to win the favor of the Lindauerheads who today control what can and cannot be said at the Bogleheads Forum.
The political aspect has dominated for 10 years. Not as a result of my doing.
The political side has dominated because there are people who do not want millions of middle-class investors to learn what the last 30 years of academic research says and they have no hope of achieving their goals except through relentless exploitation of people’s aversion to all their nastiness and intimidation tactics.
There is no one who has spoken out in opposition to those tactics as forcefully or as frequently as I have, Wade. There is no one in a close second place. I put up a post at Motley Fool on November 23, 2002 demanding John Greaney’s removal from that site. In contrast, only a few months ago you put up a blog post at your site praising Greaney.
Please take a hard look in the mirror before you fault others for failing to take action re the ugly behavior of the Lindauerheads and the Greaney Goons, my flawed human friend.
Rob
Rob says
you’re an attorney? what law school? when did you pass the Bar? in what state?
I obtained my J.D. from Catholic University of America, Canyon. I obtained a Masters in the Law of Taxation from George Washington University. I passed the bar in the District of Columbia.
I obtained my law degree for the purpose of informing my journalism work. I obtained the masters degree because of my interest in getting involved in the tax reform movement. I covered Congress for Daily Tax Report and then I wrote a column on “Tax Politics” for two years at Tax Notes magazine (which was owned by Tax Analysts and Advocates, a leading Section 501(c)(3) tax reform advocacy organization). I then worked as a tax lobbyist for the Ernst and Young consulting firm. I rose to the level of Director at E&Y. That’s the highest position available for those not on the partnership track.
Take care, man.
Rob
Rob says
Your 1,000 email campaign probably would have been a lot more effective had you stuck to the issues that the blogger discussed, rather than turning it into a personal vendetta against me.
I wrote my famous May 13, 2002, post pointing out the analytical errors in the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies in the form of a question, Wade. I didn’t even put forward a declarative sentence saying that retirement studies need to consider valuations. I posed a question as to whether maybe they should because I did not want to see Greaney’s feelings get hurt. I think it would be fair to say that that’s as far from being engaged in a “vendetta” that I could possibly have been without posting dishonestly myself by pretending that I thought that the numbers in the Greaney study were accurate.
Was that effort “effective”?
In one sense, it was wildly effective. Hundreds of my fellow community members came forward to thank me for starting the most exciting discussion we had ever seen at that board, which was at the time the most successful board in the history of the Motley Fool site.
In another sense, it was wildly ineffective. Greaney responded to the huge outpouring of interest in the substantive issues of how to plan a successful early retirement by threatening to kill family members of any poster who dared to “cross” him by posting honestly on that topic. Every poster of intelligence and integrity left the board as a result. Today, there is no Retire Early board at the Motley Fool site (there is a board by that name at which the subject of how to plan a successful early retirement is not discussed).
So was I successful or was I not?
I didn’t put up the post to destroy the community, Wade. I put up the post to help the thousands of fine people who congregated there to learn about the subject matter of the board.
You praised Greaney for how he handled things on the same day you deleted every comment I had ever put to your blog. I would be grateful if you would be willing to tell us why you took these actions. Are you able to say what was going through your mind at the time?
My strong hunch is that it had something to do with the threats that Greaney made to have his Goon Squad send defamatory e-mails to your employer with the aim of getting you fired from your job. Am I close?
Rob
Rob says
No one likes to see a negative campaign.
You got this one right, Wade.
This! — Times 1,000!
How do we bring the Campaign of Terror to a full and complete stop by the close of business today?
That’s the $64,000 question, is it not? We all want to bring it to a stop. But who has the guts to put the bell around the cat’s neck?
If I had a magic wand that would take us back to the morning of May 13, 2002, I would wave it in the air and let us all go back in time and take the more promising path instead of the dark one a good number of us chose instead.
I do not have access to a magic wand. Neither do you. Neither does Bogle. Neither does Shiller.
Do you have any constructive suggestions re this aspect of the question?
Rob
Rob says
I told you that after a brief initial concern, I was not intimidated by any alleged threats, and I wasn’t lying about it.
I don’t believe you.
Rob
Rob says
The problem is that you dismiss any disagreement with you as being driven by fear about ‘goons’.
Yet to this day I refer to John Greaney, an individual who has threatened to kill my wife and children, as “friend.”
Here’s Greaney’s site:
http://www.s152957355.onlinehome.us/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=HOCO
If you don’t believe what I say here, you can check it out with your own eyes.
Why do I do that, Wade? What drives me? What is my motivation?
Rob
Rob says
You are being nice to me now
I love you, Wade.
Loving someone means caring about their welfare.
When you do things that advance the welfare of Wade Pfau, I praise you to the skies. When you do things that do great harm to Wade Pfau, I point out the mistakes and implore you to stop making them.
I think it would be fair to say that I care more about Wade Pfau’s future than Wade Pfau at the moment cares about Wade Pfau’s future.
I get it that you are scared, Wade.
I knew about the errors in the Old School SWR studies long before May 13, 2002. I was scared too. I get that part of all this loud and clear.
What do you think will happen if we all remain too scared to speak out too much longer?
The research says that we will end up in the Second Great Depression.
Is that a good outcome for Wade Pfau?
I say “no.”
Rob
Rob says
just the other day you were advocating that I be sent to jail.
I have never advocated such a thing, Wade.
To the contrary, I have said on numerous occasions that I will be doing all in my power to see that your prison sentence is reduced. I will be writing about the pressures you are under and all this sort of thing in an effort to get your prison sentence reduced.
What do you think is going to happen?
The errors in the Old School SWR studies became public knowledge 10 years ago. Not one of the studies has been corrected to this day. We are going to see millions of failed retirements. This will be the worst social crisis ever experienced in U.S. history.
Do you think you will be able to pretend that you knew nothing about it? There are Post Archives. Hundreds of thousands of posts at scores of different web sites. You participated actively at places like the Bogleheads Forum. Do you not think anyone is going to be able to prove your involvement in this?
Bernie Madoff is in prison today. He was the toast of the town before his fraud was exposed. It is financial fraud to know that a number in a retirement study is wrong and not to correct it. You have engaged in defamation against those trying to get the studies corrected. How do you think that is going to look when the millions of retirements go bust?
I said in one of my e-mails to you that your decision to entangle yourself with Mel Linduaer and John Greaney was “insane.” I stand by that, Wade.
You are not thinking clearly. I am saddened by that. I will do all that I can to help.
But I do not possess magical powers. I would not be acting as friend to you to let on that I do.
Rob
Rob says
And there is still the matter that you violated my privacy by posting my email messages.
You are an academic researcher, Wade.
There are responsibilities that go with that.
I have had numerous people tell me that everything I say about stock investing makes sense to them but that they need to hear the “experts” say it before they will feel comfortable investing their money pursuant to what makes sense.
As an academic researcher, you play a role in forming the opinion of the “experts.”
When you are threatened and when you agree to stop publishing honest research as a result of those threats, that’s a public policy matter of grave importance.
I am a journalist. It is my job to report on these sorts of things.
We are in an economic crisis. There are millions of people who need to know about your research. I will be asked at a later date what I did to get the word out. I want to be able to say something that sounds halfway reasonable when that day comes.
This stuff matters. We took away defined pensions from most middle-class workers. We told them to provide for their own retirements. If millions of middle-class people are going to provide for their own retirements, we are going to have to find a means to get accurate and honest information about what the last 30 years of academic research says on the subject of stock investing out to those people.
Getting the word out on your research on Valuation-Informed Indexing is the #1 public policy concern of our nation today. I do what I can. I can do no more and I can do no less.
Rob
Rob says
What am I supposed to say?
Say what you truly believe, Wade.
That’s the answer.
That’s the answer for all of us.
Say what you truly believe and you’ll never go wrong.
Rob
Rob says
Anything else I do on the subject would just be incremental fill-in-the-holes type of stuff that I would not be able to publish anywhere, and given the shortage of time we all face in our lives, this just isn’t a very high priority.
Prior to the day that threats to get you fired from your job were advanced, you foresaw getting your research on the superiority of Valuation-Informed Indexing published in the most prestigious journal in the field.
Now it’s “incremental fill-in-the-holes stuff” to which you assign a low priority?
Again, I don’t believe you, Wade.
You are afraid of what will be done to you if you post honest research on the dangers of Buy-and-Hold. Those who have been covering up the errors in the Old School SWR studies for 10 years now have accrued hundreds of billions in legal liabilities by doing so. They have power and money that you do not possess and you believe based on what you have seen done to others that that power and money will be used to crush you if you “cross” these people.
If all of us who want to do honest work stick together, the Wall Street Con Men will not be able to crush any of us, Wade.
Standing alone, we can each be individually destroyed. United, we gain a power that all of their money cannot overcome.
I don’t blame you for being afraid. I am afraid myself. I have spoken to many good and smart people in this field who are also afraid. The bottom line here is that, if you are too afraid to do honest work, you need to find another way to make a living.
And none of us want that. We need you!
So you need to get over your fears. Not just you. We all do That’s the only way off of this dark path and leading forward to all the good stuff that you have promised to bring to fruition with the amazing good work you have done.
Don’t let the bad guys get you down, man.
Rob
Rob says
If someone is not at all persuaded by the already published study, then it won’t do any good to show more and more results for the same basic thing.
You’re wrong, Wade.
Say that you are in a store and you are choosing a cola product. There’s Coke at one price. And there’s the No-Name brand at a 50 percent discount. Which one do you pick up?
Most of us pick up the Coke. Why? Because Coke spends millions of dollars seeing to it that we hear that Coke is better hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times.
We humans are not logic-processing machines. We are social beings. The number of times we hear a message matters as much as the logic inherent in the message. People will make the shift to Valuation-Informed Indexing once they see it being discussed as often and by as many people as Buy-and-Hold.
All of us who understand how stock investing works need to stop being so darn afraid of what the Buy-and-Holders will say about us if we express our sincere thoughts.
You advanced the ball in a major way when you published the research you have already published. Please don’t ever for two seconds believe that I think different.
But your fear over following up on that message has done us all great harm too. That’s the other side of the story.
You should be proud of what you have accomplished. You certainly shouldn’t be acting ashamed of your fine research.
You should be joining me in sending the e-mails, Wade. The work will get done in half the time if we are both sending an equal number. We are on the same side (the full truth is that even the Buy-and-Holders are ultimately on the same side). We all need to work together to do all we can to spread the word about VII far and wide.
That’s what I want to see from you. No more shame. No more hiding out. No more trying to win the favor of Buy-and-Hold Goons. I want to see you saying what you truly believe and doing research that reflects what you truly believe and directing all your energies to getting the word out about the investing strategies that you truly believe work best in the long run.
When we are all doing that, we will all be having fun. And we will all see that this is good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff.
Please think it over, my old friend.
Rob
Rob says
Productivity isn’t just measured by time spent engaged in an activity, but by the overall results.
There’s huge leverage in opening the internet up to honest posting on stock investing, Wade.
When the Ban on Honest Posting has been lifted, there won’t be one researcher showing that Valuation-Informed Indexing is superior. There will be hundreds! None of us will be afraid. We will all be learning exciting new stuff on a daily basis.
There is no more productive work that you could be doing. There is no work that you could be doing that would produce more impressive long-term results.
Think what it will mean when we have John Bogle advocating Valuation-Informed Indexing, Wade. That is going to change the world in a very positive way. We are close today. You could make the difference. You have it in your power to take us off the path leading to the Second Great Depression and to put us on the path leading to the greatest surge of economic growth ever seen in history.
I have a funny feeling that it was dreams of doing that sort of thing that attracted a young Wade Pfau to this field in the first place. Be what you set out to be in your early days, Wade! Live the dream! It’s in your power to make it happen. All it takes is a little courage.
And we’ve got your back, man.
Rob
Rob says
if you really do care about the topic of valuations, and not just your own personal aggrandizement
It’s not the topic of valuations that I care about, Wade.
What I care about are the millions of middle-class people who are going to suffer failed retirements if those studies are not corrected.
It’s the people who matter in the end. You should be caring about the people affected by your work too. That’s an important part of the job.
It’s not just numbers. There are people’s lives at stake here.
I ask that you (and many others, to be sure) try hard not to forget that.
If I agree to post dishonestly on SWRs, I am selling out people who have been good friends to me.
No can do.
Rob
Rob says
and not just your own personal aggrandizement,
Did I show any concern about my own personal aggrandizement on the morning of May 13, 2002, Wade?
That post was the atom bomb that led to all of the amazing insights that we have mined together in the ten years since. Was that an act of personal aggrandizement, in your assessment?
Rob
Rob says
please try to trust my judgment and stop harassing me all the time.
I will never again say that your research merits a Nobel prize, Wade.
That was so mean!
What was I thinking to say something so mean?
How could anyone ever become so mean?
Rob
Rob says
While I can never spend as much time as you writing about valuations
You could spend the remainder of your lifetime publishing research rooted in the Valuation-Informed Indexing Model, Wade.
Thousands of studies rooted in the discredited Buy-and-Hold Model have been published over the past three decades. That’s why we are in an economic crisis today. We need thousands of studies rooted in an honest assessment of what the historical data reveals to pull us out of the crisis.
You have decades of exciting discoveries ahead of you, Wade. Just don’t let yourself get tangled up with any bad characters and thereby ruin it all, okay?
Rob
Rob says
I was able to get a mention about the link between withdrawal rates and valuations into the print editions of the Economist and the Wall Street Journal, and one of my articles on this issue won the Journal of Financial Planning’s editor’s choice award for the article from 2011 which had the biggest impact on the financial planning profession. So even if you do not care for my methods, it is hard for you to argue that I’m not making a contribution.
You have made a HUGE contribution. I make that clear as can be in the article that I link to in every e-mail I send out. There is no one alive on Planet Earth doing more to make the world aware of your contribution. There is no one in a close second place.
But have you gotten any of the Old School SWR studies corrected?
That’s the rub, Wade.
It’s been 10 years. What do you think it is that is holding things up?
Rob
Rob says
Did you know that in the last Financial Planning Association survey, something like 30% of planners say that they consider valuations when advising clients on an appropriate withdrawal rate?
My sense is that virtually no one in the field believes in Buy-and-Hold anymore, Wade. Rob Arnott asked for a show of hands at a researcher’s conference as to how many believed and reported that only a tiny number of hands went up.
The rub came with the follow-up question. He then asked how many would be pretending to believe when they returned to doing research on Monday morning. Nearly every hand in the room shot up in response to that one!
Academic research is a plus if its honest. Academic research is a minus if it is not honest.
We need to get Bogle to give a speech saying “I Was Wrong” and we need to have the New York Times write up that speech on its front page the following day. Then it’s over. From that day forward, no academic researcher will be afraid to do honest work.
Or should I say “Then it begins”? All the wonderful stuff that Bogle had in mind when he put forward the idea that investing strategies should be rooted in research begins happening on that day.
Do you care about Bogle, Wade? Old Saint Jack has made important contributions too, you know.
Can you find it in your heart to help the guy out in return for all that he has done for everyone who works in this field today?
Rob
Rob says
Though I think it was partly an odd historical circumstance
All Buy-and-Hold was an odd historical circumstance, Wade.
Had Shiller published his research in 1971 instead of 1981, the name of the book would have been “A Valuation-Informed Walk Down Wall Street” and every last one of us would be a Valuation-Informed Indexer today.
And there would be no economic crisis.
We would be living in the greatest period of economic growth ever seen.
We need to fix our mistakes when we learn about them.
That’s part of the research experience.
This is my sincere take re this important matter, in any event.
Rob
Rob says
cheers to you for putting 2 and 2 together in your early retirement planning online community and figuring out that something was amiss.
Thanks for saying that, Wade.
Rob
Rob says
This is mainstream now.
Yes and no.
It’s mainstream that the retirement studies get the numbers wildly wrong.
It is NOT mainstream to demand that they be corrected now that we all agree that they are in error.
I am the only one publicly demanding corrections in the studies, Wade.
You did that one time. You are a hero for that.
We need that old version of Wade Pfau back.
Rob
Rob says
Welcome to 2012.
Welcome to an economic crisis well on its way to becoming a Second Great Depression.
Heaven help us all!
Rob
canyon wanderer says
wow, hard to get a word in edgewise.
slow down a bit, let others ask a few questions before you provide 20 plus answers.
Rob says
These are important matters, Canyon.
Wade’s research is important research.
Wade is a good friend of mine.
When my good friend Wade takes time out of his day to help us all out, I am going to take whatever time it takes to respond as clearly and completely to all the points be brings up as I possibly can.
My best wishes to you and yours.
Rob
what says
Rob is ‘clearly and completely’ off his meds.
Rob says
Oh, it’s gone way past that, What.
I was clearly and completely off my meds on the morning of May 13, 2002.
This is something worse than that.
Heaven help —
Me!
Rob
Trebor Martin says
You should be deeply embarrassed regarding your treatment of WP. Have you no shame?
Rob says
I love Wade, Trebor.
I intend to see that he wins a Nobel prize for his amazing, breakthrough research.
I care deeply about a lot of other people in this field who are capable of doing more rewarding work than they are doing today. I care about John Bogle. I care about Bill Bernstein. I care about Scott Burns. I care about Larry Swedroe.
And I care about you, Trebor.
We all benefit when we open up the entire internet to honest posting re safe withdrawal rates and many other critically important investment-related topics.
Please take good care.
Rob