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

People often argue about which sports team is better.  We know that someone is right and someone is wrong.  Games have a scoreboard for a reason.  Look at your outcome. You are broke.  Outcomes tell us who is right and who is wrong.

The last 42 years of peer-reviewed research is the more important scoreboard, Anonymous. The difference is that the peer-reviewed research looks at the entire history of the stock market while your scoreboard is how things feel at a moment in time when irrational exuberance is out of control and the CAPE value is scary high.

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:

As said thousands of times, your opinion of what one guy said is not “peer-reviewed research”.  Have you ever conducted any kind of research?  Do you know how to even run a full retrospective study?  What formal education do you have with respect to research in the investment field?  You like to put labels on things in which you have no fundamental knowledge or training.

I don’t need any specialized knowledge and traning to be able to read the title of a book, Anonymous. The title of Shiller’s book is “Irrational Exuberance.” Does that sound like a good thing to you? It sounds like a bad thing to me.

If irrational exuberance is a bad thing, then all investors should be working together to limit it to the greatest extent possible. The only way to do that is for investors to lower their stock allocation when prices get out of cotrol and the long-term value proposition of stocks is dimished That’s market timing! Not the bad kind that never works (short-term timing). The good kind that always works because it is price discipline and price discipline has been absolutely essential in every market that ever existed going back to the beginning of time.

Or so my formal education in reading the titles of books informs me.

My best wishes.

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:

So if we need to talk about labeling people when we post, we should refer to you as delusional and a psychopath.

You should say what you believe, Anonymous.

I believe that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment and I believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term return is legitimate research. My views about short-term market timing (making guesses as to when prices will move up or down) are precisely the same as those of the Buy-and-Holders. I believe that the Buy-and-Holders made a mistake in thinking that long-term market timing also doesn’t work and isn’t required. At the time they made that call, Shiller’s research had not yet been published. So they took a shot on the dark. That shot in the dark turned out to be wrong. The best thing to do when you learn that you have made a mistake is to acknowledge it and move on with your life.

I encourage my Buy-and-Hold friends to acknowledge their mistake so that we can all get about the business of perfecting the first true research-based strategy, Valuation-Informed Indexing. Long-term market timing is price discipline. No market can survive without price discipline. We have suffered terribly several times in the past for our failure to exercise price discipline when buying stocks and I think that we should all be grateful that we now live at a time when bull markets and bear markets and economic crises are all optional becausse of what we have learned about how stock investing works in the real world from Shiller’s amazing Nobel-prize-winning research. We need to as a nation of people give ourselves permission to discuss that amazing, life-affirming research at every discussion board and blog on the internet, without a single exception.

You are going to behave as a Goon behaves regardless of what I say. So I have to accept that unfortunate behavior as a reality of life. What matters in the long-term is how the Normals (the 90 percent of the population that today follows a Buy-and-Hold strategy but that believes that every site should be opened to honest posting re the research) react to the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis, which today’s CAPE level suggest may be arriving within the next year or two or three. Those are the people I write for. Those people need to know how stock investing works and want to know how stock investing works. They are good people. They are smart people. They will suffer terribly in the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis, in the event that stocks continue to perform in the future somewhat as they always have in the past. I believe that the Normals will make the right call.

We will see. I don’t feel that I can say for certain given that there has never before been a situation quite like this, where the evidence for something all points in one direction and where the Get Rich Quick inmpulses of millions of people pull them in the opposite direction for a time. I know that I cannot say that I believe that the Greaney study contains an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. I know how it made me feel about myself when for three years I kept it zipped re the error in the Greaney study even though I knew what harm might come to friends I had made at the Motley Fool board because of my lack of courage to stand up to you Goons. I have felt better about myseld as a person since the morning of May 13, 2002, despite all of the ugliness that you have so forcefully and relentlessly dished out. Being able to sleep at night is important to me. I have regretted much of what I have seen go down. But I have never for one second regretted the call I made when I advanced that fateful post.

I wish you all good things, you know? That I can do. So that I do. I cannot say that I believe that the Greaney retirement study contains an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. So that I do not do.

I believe that Buy-and-Hold is the past and the Valuation-Informed Indexing (which is identical in eveey way to Buy-and-Hold except that it corrects the error that the Buy-and-Holders made when they suggested that long-term market timing might not always be 100 percent required for every investor at all times) is the future. But I am not God. Its theroetically possible that I am wrong. We will just have to wait and see how it all plays out in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis.

My best wishes to you and yours.

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:

“ I was not banned at just one or two places. I was banned at lots of places. There were a few places where I backed off when it became clear that I was going to be banned if I continued posting about what the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research teaches us all about how stock investint works in the real world. If I continued pushing at those places, I would have been banned at those places as well.”

People disagree with each other every day on almost every board. People are not banned because of their opinions (except on this board). You lack the self awareness to understand why you are really banned. No one can reason with you. Even your wife gave up.

I like your observation that people disagree all the time and it’s not usually such a big deal. That gets to the heart of things. The purpose of my book is to explain that. I can try to explain it briefly here. But the ultimate purpose is to explain it in detail and in depth. To understand why people are so sensitive to hearing what the research says in this area is to understand what stock investing is all about. Your question gets to the core of the stock investing project.

It’s about self-denial. Self-denial is the key to everything. That’s what people need to understand to know what is going on in the stock market. What’s a bull market? It’s a grand exercise in self-denial. Millions of people agree collectively to push stock prices up to unsustainable levels and not to tell anyone that that’s what they are doing. If you tell, the illusion is broken and people realize that it is in their best interest to lower their stock allocation once prices reach such crazy levels and, when they do that, the bull market goes “Poof!” A bull market cannot sustain widespread telling.

That’s why I am hated by some for telling. I am loved by some too because some get it. And the vast majroity don’t understant what all the commotion is about, they would be happy for me to be able to post honestly but they are not too terribly distressed if I go away. But some flat out hate me for taling about the research. Those are the ones that I call “Goons.” They hate me because they see that permitting discussion of rhe last 42 years of research would be the end of bull markets. They like bull marklets and they realize on some level of consciousness how vulnerable they are. Permit people to talk about the research openly and bull markets are a thing of the past. I of course think that sounds great. You Goons think it sounds horrible. Your entire identity is tied up in the bull market. You count irrational exubeeance gains as real and you congratulate yourself for being smart enough to tap into them. I threaten that pleasant illusion. You are not wrong to be threatened. Shiller’s research findings revolutionize our understanding of how stock investing works in a fundamental way.

I mean to threaten today’s CAPE level, Anonymous. I mean to bring it down. It’s nothing personal against you or any of the other Goons. It’s just that I believe that irrational exuberance hurts humans and other living things. So I aim to say the words that need to be said to bring that CAPE level diown, to get the numbers on your portfolio statement to better reflect that economic realities. So you perceive me as the enemy. I think of myself as your friend. We have different persepctives. I see it as a good thing for you to know the true and lasting value of your stock portfolio.

The stock market is a battle of human emotions. There is econmic stuff underlying it. That stuff is real. But that stuff is so simple. The economic stuff provides gains of 6.5 percent real per year. If we all could be satisfied with that, we would all be in grreat shape and there would never be bull markets and there would be no conflict on our boards. But there is something in human natiure that wants something for nothing, that wants to go beyond what the economic realities provide and create trillions of dollars of phony baloney irrational exuberance. That’s where you get bull markets and down the road economic crises. That’s where Buy-and-Hold comes in. Buy-and-Hold PROTECTS irrational exuberance. So those seeking the phony baloney stuff love Buy-and-Hold. It suggests to them that the irrational exuberance is real. Which is something that they desperately want to hear.

Shiller’s research is inflammatory. It’s a huge advance. It is all good, no bad. But it represents a threat to those who are trying to believe that the irrational exuberance gains are real and are having a hard time doing it (we all continue to possess common sense, even in the midst of a raging bull market, we can never entirely kill it, common sense is part of our human nature as well).

Say that I were welecomed with open arms at every site tomorrow morning. I would get a chance to have my say without disruptions by yout Goons, People would learn the realities of stock investing. Nice, right?

Well, people would suffer huge losses. Millions of retirements would fail. Hundreds of thousands of businesses would go under. If investors were able to talk over what is in their best interest, today’s CAPE value could not be sustained. The value of the stock market would drop by nearly 50 percent. I tbink that would be a very good thing. Because the research shows us that prices are going to drop eventually in any event and it would be better if we had knowledge of why they were dropping when it happened so that we could avoid panic. And of couese once we all understood what was happening, we could work tofether to stop it from ever happening again. But the reality is that a lot of human misery would follow from me being permitted to post at every site, as I would like. You Goons are “protecting” us from all that. All of your nastiness helps to protect people’s phony baloney irrational exuberance wealth from destruction at my hands. That’s why some of the Normals feel some synpathy for your cause.

Research helps us to understand reality. Once we understand reality, there can be no more bull markets. The very term “bull market’ suggewts that reality has been abandoned. Do we want stock investing to be a rational enterpeise? I do. You very much do not. You like your irrational exuberance and I am out to destroy it. Irrational exxuberancw is rooted in emotion. So this is a battle over emotions. It gets to people on a deep level. There’s an intesnity.

I don’t believe that it always needs to be so intense. Once we get the CAPE value down (it’s going to happen whether I am permitted to post or not — Shiller’s research shows that it always happens sooner or later — otherwise, the stock market couldn’t contunue to function), the intense feelings of vulnerability that Buy-and-Holders feel when the contemplate the thought that much of the accumulate wealth of their lifetime is rooted in cotton candy emotionalism will no longer be as strong. I believe that we will then be able to work together to use Shiller’s research to learn how to live better and fuller and richer and freer lives from that point forward. We’ll see, you know?

My best wishes, etc.

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:

“ The miracle is the learning process that is taking place in the background as we speak.”

You lost all your money, you lost your wife and you lost your home. What did you learn from all that?

I learned that the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge is a very strong thing. It would be very easy to overcome it if investors were 100 percent rational, as was assumed by the people who concluded that there is no real need for market timing because the market is efficient. It’s not easy to overcome at all. Getting investors to appreciate the critical importance of market timing/price discipline is a big job. It’s a point that needs to be made daily if we are as a nation of people going to rein in irrational exuberance and avoid having to suffer another one of these horrible Buy-and-Hold Crises.

Leave you Goons aside. You bring a lot of ugliness to the table. But the full reality is that you are extreme outlier personalities. In ordinary circumstances, you couldn’t get to first base with the 90 percent of Normals. So how the heck do you pull off what you have pulled off for 21 years running now? A lot of the Normals LIKE irrational exuberance. They want to believe in Buy-and-Hold. They count irrational exuberance gains as if they were real, just as you Goons do.

It’s nice to have 42 years of peer-reviewed research showing us all the realities of stock investing. But having Shiller’s book carried in quality libraries everywhere doesn’t get the job done. We will need to open every discssion board and blog to honest posting if we want to get that CAPE level down to a reasonable level.

Irrational exuberance isn’t hard to understand. It’s the oldest story in the book — humans have a desire within to get something for nothing. But it takes a lot of work to protect ourselves from the ocean of misery that inevitably follows once Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategies become popular.

Do you see?

Rob

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

Remember when Wade said this: “ What is Step 2? There isn’t one. You will still be in the same position as you’ve been in for the last 10 years.”

He was wrong. You are not in the same position as 10 years ago. You are in a much worse position. Your savings are now depleted, your wife divorced you and you lost your house. It is often said that drug addicts and alcoholics finally seek help when they hit rock bottom. You have hit rock bottom, yet your are so far gone that you can’t even deal with the reality of the situation. You have experienced a major failure and your future is bleak, unless there is some kind of miracle.

Wade sees the wall of abuse that a person faces if he seeks to speak honestly re the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research as an obstacle and concludes that it is not worth the personal cost that it would take to overcome that obstacle. I don’t like the personal cost that must be paid one tiny bit. So we are in agreement re that much. But I interpret the reality of the personal cost that must be paid in a different way. I see it as the EXPLANATION of why we have not advanced in our understanding of how stock investing works despite having Shiller’s amazing research findings available to us for four decades now. I see the wall of abuse as something that must be overcome if we all are to live better and fuller and richer and freer lives in the future.

The abusive posting is part of the story of stock investing. It is the emotional part that the people who came up with the Efficient Market Theory overlooked and that Shiller focused on in producing his Nobel-prize-winning research. If we ignore the emotional stuff (which trsanslates into abusive stuff when the question on the table is whether we should permit discussion of the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research), we are missing out on understanding 70 percent of the stock investing story. That 70 percent is a big deal. It is because Shiller put that 70 percent on the table that his work was important enough for him to be awarded a Nobel prize.

So Wade concludes: “It isn’t worth it.” And I conclude: “It is really, really, really worth it, the abusisve stuff shows why it is so important to explore this stuff.” I hate the absive stuff. I don’t like it one tiny bit. But it is a motivator for me because it points to something so important that is holding us all back, our desire to convince ourselves that the emotional element of the stock investing story can be ignored and that was can all just follow Buy-and-Hold/price indifferent strategies. I don’t believe that. I believe that price indifferent strategies end up causing an ocean of human misery. I believe that Buy-and-Hold as currently practiced is dangerous stuff. I believe that Buy-and-Hold needs to be modified according to what we have learned from the last 42 years of peer-reviewed resarch. I call that modified form of Buy-and-Hold “Valuation-Informed Indexing.”

The mistake that the Buy-and-Holders made in the early days was leaving out the emotional stuff that so concerns Wade, that he cynically tells himself can never be overcome. I believe that it can be overcome. I sure hope so! I believe that the overcoming of that emotional stuff is the core job of anyone working in the investment advice field. To give up re the emotional stuff is to give up on the project of offering sound investment advice.

If Wade truly believes that it is impossible to surmount that wall, he should be looking for another line of work. I believe that he will flip back in days to come and that he will at that time regret ever having flippeed to the Goon side. Wade is not a Goon at heart. He is just afraid of what you Goons can do to harm his career. And his decision to suppress the discussion of his own sincere beliefs is certainly not helping in that regard. Each time you Goons win one, it makes things harder for everyone possessing a desire to do honest work in this field.

I naturally wish you the best of luck in all of your future life endeavors.

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 truly believed in Buy-and-Hold on a deep level, you would be okay with taking a look at what the peer-reviewed research says.”

I did. Research told me that but and hold has always worked, while timing schemes have never worked. Thus, I have enough money to comfortably retire. Do you?

You don’t know how much you have, Anonymous, You don’t subtract for irrational exuberance. How could you possibly know?

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:

No one wants to be a drug addict, so rational people avoid drugs.  No one wants to be an alcoholic, so a rational person avoids consuming excess alcohol.  No one wants to be broke, so a rational person avoids market timing schemes so that they are not broke like you.

Most alcoholics and drug addict are rational, intelligent people. The same is true of most of the people who fail to engage in market timing/price discipline when buying stocks.

We shuuld be trying to help people tune out the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold noise. That’s the primary job of an investment advisor.

My best wishes to you.

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:

So even the police did not see sufficient evidence to support your claims, yet you want to perpetuate a story.  Got it.

The police wanted to see an actual attempted murder before they took action, a threat was not enough. I have never said that there was an actual attempted murder. I have said there were threats. Threats are a big deal. Threats scare people. When people who post honestly re the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research are threatened and people who post in support of Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick are not, you get more posts in support of Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick than you get pointing out what the peer-reviewed research says. Eventually, you end up with a CAPE value of 30 and the entire nation experiences the Buy-and-Hold Crisis that follows. So the threats are a big deal.

If we were all thinking clearly, we would all want to see the acts of intimidation come to a full and complete stop. Of course, if we were all thinking clearly, today’s CAPE value would not be anything close to 30. It all fits together. Buy-and-Hold is Get Rich Quick and Get Rich Quick is Buy-and-Hold. The last 42 years of peer-reviewed research is the enemy of Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold. I am a research-based guy. So I oppose acts of intimidation aimed at silencing discussion of the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research.

My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, Anonymous.

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 have already been thousands of discussions on why you are wrong about Greaney’s work.  It has been pointed out for 20 years.  What more don’t you understand that you think there needs to be a discussion. What hasn’t been answered for you?  What are you unclear about?  Is it your lack of education and training in the space that is making it so difficult for you?

For starters, I believe that the error in the Greaney retirement study (it lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins) should be corrected. People use retirement studies to plan retirements. If your model for understanding how stock investing works is so messed up that it causes you to get the numnbers in retirement studies wrong, then there is something terribly wrong with your model.

There are all kinds of amazing things that follow from that. But getting errors in retirement studies corrected is the very first step in getting to a much better place. If we were all thinking clearly, there would be a 100 percent consensus re that one. There wouldn’t be on voice of dissent.

Unfortunately, one of the things that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research shows is that it is very hard to think clearly about stock investing. We all have a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge residing within us that trips us up over and over, That’s why I frequently argue that we should permit honest posting re the peer-reviewed research at every site. The more we hear about what the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research says, the less inclined we are to fall for the pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold stuff.

My sincere take.

Rob