Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
And you deserve every single board banning when you refuse to listen to others and block posts.
We disagree, Anonymous.
The thing that I most loved about Buy-and-Hold in the days when I was a Buy-and-Holder was the idea that it was rooted in peer-reviewed research. When new research is published, it needs to be incorporated into one’s understanding of the subject matter. I have included everything that is in Buy-and-Hold in Valuation-Informed Indexing with the sole exception of the claim that market timing is not required. I left that out because there is now 41 years of peer-reviewed research showing that it is a false claim.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
Uh oh……….noted expert Wade Pfau has just released his latest podcast telling everyone that Rob Bennett and his market timing scheme is wrong. Episode 57 of his regular podcast is titled “Market Timing Still Doesn’t Work”.
I agree with Wade and his colleagues we need to stop people that are pushing these fraudulent schemes.
I think it would be fair to refer to me aa the biggest advocate of market timing/price discipline (not short-term timing, only long-term timing based on changes in valuation levels) alive on Planet Earth today. And Wade was certainly at one time (before he was threatened by you Goons) a big believer (he declared after spending 16 months researching my ideas on stock investing that “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!”). So I very much want to hear what he says in that podcast.
I am not able to listen immediately. I will try to get to it by the end of the day. If not, then certainly tomorrow.
Thanks for bringing the podcast to my attention, Anonymous.
Rob
Here’s a link to the Wade Pfau podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retire-with-style/id1611091157
Rob
I was not impressed by the podcast. They failed to consider the reason why market timing is so essential for long-term success. They did mention that all of the things that investors can look at to engage in short-term timing are priced in to the market. I believe that that is so. That explains why short-term timing cannot work. But long-term timing based on valuation shifts is rooted in something very different. The CAPE value is telling you the extent to which the market price is the product of IRRATIONALITY (hence, irrational exuberance). Irrationality can by definition never be taken into consideration in the market price. So, market risk is not a constant. It changes with shifts in valuation levels. The investor who fails to engage in market timing is by failing to do so permitting his risk profile to get out of whack. That cannot possibly be a good thing.
Wade made the best argument available to those who oppose market timing — prices have remained high since the mid-1990s, longer than they ever have before. That is so. But it is not yet clear whether that is an argument for market timing or against it. In the event that stocks continue to perform in the futue somewhat as they always have in the past, we will eventually be seeing a price crash and a Buy-and-Hold Crisis. And the fact that stocks were mispriced for a longer period of time than they have ever been mispriced before will just mean that we will have permitted mispricing to hurt us more than it ever has before. When stocks are mispriced, business executives are not able to make good decisions about what to do with their businesses and individuals are not able to make good decisions about how much to save, etc. So the long period of time in which prices have remained at insane levels is not good news, it is very bad news.
We should all want stocks to be priced properly at all times. To achieve that goal, we all need both to practice market timing (price discipline!) ourselves and to encourage all of our friends to practice market timing (price discipline!) as well. The market cannot get the price right unless we all make an effort to make rational choices. To fail to practice price discipline when buying stocks is irrational. Irrational stock investing can only subtract, it can never add.
My sincere take.
Rob
Do your conclusion is that everyone needs to invest as you say versus investing as to how the market actually works.
For those of us who follow the peer-reviewed research, our understanding of how the market works changed when Robert Shiller published his Nobel-prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns in 1981. The world of stock investing changed on that day. We need to get the word out by opening every site to honest posting. If we were all thinking clearly, there would not be a single objection to the idea.
Rob
Your interpretation of what one guy said is not peer reviewed research.
http://www.passionsaving.com/investing-discussion-boards.html
Rob
I am not sure what you are trying to say by posting a link to comments that are almost 2 decades old, with many that are out of context.
If you opened one large site to honest posting today, you would get the same comments. Stock investing has always been a battle between rational/research-based strategies and Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategies. There are times when the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold stuff gets completely out of control and we all suffer a Buy-and-Hold Crisis. And there are times when prices are more reasonable and we see more economic stability and economy growth. I believe that we will see at least one large site opened to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. That could lead to the greatest period of economic growth in our nation’s history and possibly bury the pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold stuff 30 feet in the ground, where it can do no futher harm to humans and other living things. We’ll see.
Rational/research-based strategies can never be entirely wiped out. If they ever were, there would no longer be a stock market or a U.S. economic system to worry about. I believe that rational/research-based/Valuation-Informed Indexing strtegies are going to be the next big thing. I sure hope so!
Rob
Every major investing site is open to honest posting. Many sites don’t tolerate bad behavior, as you have found out.
If pointing out that a study that a number of my friends were using to plan their retirements gets the numbers wildly wrong is considered bad behavior, I hope to become known as the king of bad behavior.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, Anonymous.
Rob
Do you want your “friends” to have the same outcome as you? How many are interested is going broke and getting divorced?
I have been advocating since the first day that we all pull together and bring a complete and total stop to the abusivness that you Goons have brought to the table. Take the abusivenss out of the picture and all we have left are the hundreds of amazing insights about how stock investing works that we have developed together during the first 21 years of our discussions. Wonderful, amazing, life-affirming stuff.
The absuive stuff has been truly awful. Obviously. But the good stuff has been 20 times more good than the bad stuff has been bad.
Fair enough?
Rob