Valuation-Informed Indexing #696: Most Buy-and-Hold Dogmas Have Never Been Formally Stated

I’ve posted Entry #696 to my weekly Valuation-Informed indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called Most Buy-and-Hold Dogmas Have Never Been Formally Stated.

Juicy Excerpt: My sense is that the Buy-and-Holders simply never made the distinction between the guessing-game form of market timing and valuation-based market timing. They were properly persuaded that the guessing game form of market timing does not work and improperly stated their conclusion as an admonition against market timing in general. Index funds were not widely available at the time when the Buy-and-Hold strategy was being developed and valuation-based market timing only works with index funds. My guess is that few appreciated the need to distinguish between the two types of market timing in those days.