“They Speak Honestly at Times. But They Are Too Hesitant About It for the Message to Break Through to People Who Very Much Want to Believe in Buy-and-Hold Because Their Retirements Are Built on It.”

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

They do speak honestly.  You just like what they say.

They speak honestly at times. But they are too hesitant about it for the message to break through to people who very much want to believe in Buy-and-Hold because their retirements are built on it.

Shiller is honest when he says that valuations affect long-term returns and when he writes an entire book on the subject of irrational exuberance. But why not include a sentence in his book saying that the Buy-and-Hold studies get the numbers wildly wrong? That’s pretty basic. That’s pretty darn important.

Bernstein was honest re the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies getting the numbers wildly wrong. But there’s a lot of stuff in his book that was heavily influenced by the Buy-and-Hold mindset. And how often did he repear the thing about the safe withdrawal rates being 2 percent at the top of the bubble. I am only aware of him saying it that one time, in his book. That was is important enough to merit thousands of mentions. People use retirement studies to plan retirements.

The research that I co-authored with Wade is the most important research published in this field in 30 years. So full props to him for his courage. But why flip to the Goon side? It’s because he needed to hear that other people in the field had his back. “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!” That’s good to know. But what percentage of investors know it today? We need to open every site to honest posting to get the word out.

My sincere take.

Rob