“Stocks Are in a General Sense a Better Choice Than the Other Options. But Price Always Matters. No Matter How Great Stocks Are, There Is a Price at Which They Are No Longer the Best Option.”

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

That is not what the research actually says and is clearly not the outcomes we have seen.  If you want to consider stock risk, then you can’t ignore the risk of every other investment vehicle.  Look at how everyone has gotten destroyed by inflation with every other investment option other than stocks.  You are the poster boy of retirement failures.

Stocks are in a general sense a better choice than the other options. I certainly agree with that much. But price always matters. No matter how great stocks are, there is a price at which they are no longer the best option. To be able to identify what that price is, you need to always pay attention to irrational exuberance, to practice price discipline, to engage in valuation-based market timing. When the Buy-and-Holders discourage investors from doing this, they take an amazing asset class and turn it into something dubious and dangerous.

I would permit honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. Marketing gimmicks taken too far hurt people in very serious ways.

Rob