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

“Then we could all enjoy the benefits on investing in an asset class that offers high returns at minimal risk.”

I don’t think there is a better sentence that illustrates your lack of understanding of how stock investing works.

If there was an asset class that offers high returns at minimal risk then we would all try to buy it, driving up the price and therefore lowering returns.

You’re describing what we would all do if we were all 100 percent rational. We are not. That’s the entire point of Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research. Shiller DISCREDITED the Efficient Market Theory. Investors are humans. which means that they have an inclination to engage in highly emotional behavior at times. 70 percent of what it takes to be a successful long-term stock investor is reining in those emotional inclinations. That is done through valuation-based market timing.

The companies that make up the U.S. stock market produce profits. The investors who own the shares of those companies get to participate in those gains. Stocks are not inherently risky. The thing that has made them risky in the past is irrational exuberance. Investors start to think that valuation-based market timing might not always be 100 percent required and they bid prices up to crazy levels. Then there is a horrible price to pay. We see bull markets and price crashes and economic collapses every time the Buy-and-Hold “strategy” (no market timing now, no price discipline now) becomes possible.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We now have 43 years of peer-reviewed research showing how stock investing works in the real world. And we have seen in our discussions that many. many investors are interested in learning the realities. All that we need to do is to open every site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research and from that point forward we all get to live better and fuller and richer and freer lives.

I vote “yes” to that. I am not able to imagine any possible downside.

Rob

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

There is always risk in everything. Stock, CDs, Bonds, Real Estate, precious metals, etc. That is how it goes.

No, Rob, you have not found any special magic or insight. If YOUR research was successful, then you would not be broke. We haven’t seen one single successful outcome with VII. You can slap as many labels as you want to try and package things up like some miracle cure, but it doesn’t make it so.

There’s more risk in drunk driving than there is in sober driving.

There’s more risk in Buy-and-Hold than there is in Valuation-Informed Indexing.

The thing that causes risk for stock investors is irrational exuberance. Failing to engage in valuation-based market timing permits irrational exuberance to get out of control. Engaging in valuation-based market timing reins in irrational exuberance.

Stock investing risk is not something that comes out of the sky randomly. We have control over it. It’s up to stock investors how risky stocks become for them. The peer-reviewed research tells us what is needed.

Rob

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

There is nothing wrong with the statement by Evidence.  Without stocks, you are not able to participate in the upsides of growth that beat inflation.  Your own track record of failure is proof of that alone.

Evidence is saying that, since stocks were risky in the past, they will always be risky in the future. i strongly disagree. We learned something very important about stocks in 1981. We learned that irrational exuberance is a thing and that they key to successful long-term stock investing is to always, always, always practice valuation-based market timing and to always tune out the market pitch advanced by our Wall Street Con Men friends that there might be some alternate universe 50 billion light years away in which everything works the opposite of how it has always worked here on good old Planet Earth and valuation-based market timing (price discipline!) is not 100 percent required. Huh? What the f?

I think it will continue to be required. And I think that over time more and more of us will become aware of the importance of valuation-based market timing. The Bennett/Pfau research shows that we can reduce stock investing risk by nearly 70 percent just by being willing to practice price discipline when buying stocks. Stock investing risk is not a given. It was a product of our ignorance of how stock investing works in the days before Shiller published his Nobel-prize-winning research. Shiller’s research is an advance that makes all of our lives better. Good for us for being able to live in the better world that that advance makes possible.

I was a Buy-and-Holder once. The thing that drew me to it were the statements that Buy-and-Holders made that investors should look to the peer-reviewed research guidance for guidance on how to invest in stocks. I think that the Buy-and-Holders were right re that one. I only wish that they listened to their own advice!

Research is a plus. It is a plus because it teaches us things we didn’t know before the research was available to us. Shiller’s research was the biggest plus in the history of personal finance. It taught us the most important lesson about stock investing — that investors must never, ever forget to engage in valuation-based market timing. Once we get past you Goons, we all get to enjoy the far-reaching benefits of that advance from that day forward.

Research is good! Research works! Research is the future!

Stock investing risk is optional.

My sincere take.

Rob

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

You were hugely successful in making a case, yet you can’t get anyone to post over here anonymously.  Sounds like you were a huge failure.

It would be fair to say that that’s so in a short-term sense.

I don’t think that it’s so in a long-term sense.

There was a thing that Martin Luther King said about civil rights. It was something along the lines of: “The arc of history bends toward justice.” There were lots of setbacks. lots of frustrations. But things things continued to move gradually under the surface in the right direction and in the end huge progress was made.

I believe that the arc of history in the personal finance realm bends toward rationality in stock investing. There’s where things are headed. I obviously wish that it didn’t have to be so hard or take so long. But I continue to believe that that’s where things are headed.

The behavior of you Goons is one reason why. Your behavior is not normal. It is 100 percent outside the parameters of normal human behavior. There has to be some explanation of that. I think it is that you desperately want Buy-and-Hold to be a real thing but you have zero evidence to point to in trying to argue that valuation-based market timing is not always 100 percent required for every investor. All of the evidence points in one direction and no evidence whatsoever points in the other direction. So you are in a tight spot. So we see this crazy behavior as your means of coping with this difficult reality.

I don’t believe that that approach is sustainable. It’s too weird. It has “worked” in a way for 22 years. You have managed to keep enough people in the dark to keep Buy-and-Hold going for a long time. But there is just too much evidence that valuations affect long-term returns for it to remain a viable strategy for the long term. So I think that both your strategy of intimidation of anyone who refers to the peer-reviewed research and Buy-and-Hold itself will fall in time. And that that will be a wonderful day for the people of the United States. If there had never been a Buy-and-Hold, we all would have become Valuation-Informed Indexers a long time ago.

We are as a nation of people undergoing a struggle. Everyone should be on the side of wanting to see the debate that we need to have go forward. Each time someone permits himself to be intimidated into silence, it makes it worse for all the others who want to do real, honest work. Each time someone works up the courage to stand up to you Goons, it makes it better for all the others.

We are not where we need to be. But we are much more closer than surface indications suggest.

Or so I sincerely believe, you know? I am not God. I theoretically could be wrong. I certainly never thought that the abusive stuff would continue for 22 years. But that’s what I believe. So that’s why I continue to insist on my right (and the right of all others) to post honestly re the last 43 years of peer-reviewed research.

Rob

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 your peer reviewed research opinion, along with your magical market timing system, gave you such a great retirement plan, right Rob?  Gee, we wish we could be totally broke like you.

That’s emotion, Anonymous.

That’s what Shiller was getting at when he used the term “IRRATIONAL Exuberance.” The rational thing would be to want to get the numbers right in retirement studies, not to strike out at those who point our errors in the studies.

Rob

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

Rob, it doesn’t matter who you convince.  The numbers matter.  Your market timing scheme has never worked and you are broke.  Isn’t actually a good thing people are not following your advice?

The Bennett/Pfau research shows that Valuation-Informed Indexing has been trouncing Buy-and-Hold for as long as there has been a market to invest in.

You have no way of knowing what the numbers show, You don’t adjust for irrational exuberance, as the last 43 years of peer-reviewed research shows is required to get the numbers right.

If we had opened every site to honest posting re the research on the afternoon of May 13, 2002, we never would have experienced the Great Recession of 2008. That would have been better. And the CAPE value today would not be anything even remotely in the neighborhood of 34. It would be something close to 17. That would be better.

And none of our discussion boards or blogs would have been destroyed as a result of your abusive posting. That would be better. And hundreds of people would have written books on Valuation-Informed Indexing over those 22 years, so as a nation of people we would be much farther along in our development of the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept. That would be better.

Rob

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

If you think it is overpriced, then don’t buy the stock. Others don’t have to think like you or do like you (thank goodness). The last house I bought, the asking price was $1.25 million and is in a very hot area. I was bidding along with several others. I ended up paying $1.33 million. Two years later, the house is worth at least $1.6 million without factoring in what could be another price war. Did I overpay? Now compare that to the S&P in 2010 and every year after when you kept telling us it was overpriced. Look at where it is today. Look at how people would have lost out listening to your bad advice.

How much money do you have in your investment accounts right now, Rob?

I rest my case.

It’s not possible for anyone to “lose out” by becoming informed as to what the last 43 years of peer-reviewed says about how stock investing works in the real world. Prices are set by markets. For investors to set prices properly, they need access to the information needed to make good choices. The peer-reviewed research is obviously critically important information. We all benefit when every investor is able to talk over the far-reaching implications of Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research at every site because permitting honest posting re the research permits us to do a better job of establishing stock prices.

Or so Rob Bennett sincerely believes, in any event.

Rob