“The Only Thing Holding Us Back Today Is the Unwillingness of the Buy-and-Holders to Say the Words ‘I’ and ‘Was’ and “Wrong'”

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2021/07/07/how-to-retire-with-2-million-on-an-80000-salary/?source=eptyholnk0000202&utm_source=yahoo-host&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=article

Just confirms success with buy and hold for the long term and then use a 4% SWR.

Articles like this will say something different after we have opened every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. Adding a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold component to a retirement plan adds nothing — it always subtracts by increasing risk and diminishing returns. The best thing to do is to Stay the Course. In a world in which valuations affect long-term returns, that requires market timing to keep irrational exuberance from getting out of hand.

The only thing holding us back today is the unwillingness of the Buy-and-Holders to say the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.” I have a funny feeling that, in the days after the next price crash, we will all be working together to encourage each other to engage in market timing (price discipline!) at all times and to keep irrational exuberance to a bare minimum.

We’ll see.

Rob