How many times could you have made this claim in Japan the last 20 years?

I know I know, we aren’t Japan….

With rates low, that is the worst time to own stocks, as rates will likely be rising…ESPECIALLY IF YOU STATE ONE MINUTE EARLIER THAT TREASURIES ARE TOXIC ASSETS.

And a P/E of 130, going to 1800, is not exactly reasonable…in fact, I call it INSANE.

Buy and hold investors have to manage risk via asset class diversification vs. timing.

Buy and Holders have a few benefits: If you believe your time has a value, they spend less of it doing research, watching markets, or making trades. They can also benefit by using securities with low expense ratios, and because they trade less, they pay a lot less in commissions. Those savings compounded can really add up over a few decades.

But Barry’s right, the problem with B&H is the risk of running into a secular bear towards the end of your investment horizon. It doesn’t matter if stocks are the best asset class over the long haul, humans don’t yet have an average life span of 150-200 years.

Active management and timing is the right approach for me, but it requires more time, more expenses, and more discipline – much more than the average person can realistically put into practice. What works best in theory isn’t really practical in real life for the vast majority of people. Investing isn’t fun or interesting to them anymore than seeing the dentist.

I think the measure of success is a little different for each trader. On the point of this debate, the success of the investor depends on the short and long term financial goals which is why you can’t just say buy and hold is good for everyone, they all have different goals, different time horizon, etc. There is nothing worse than blanket financial planning and investment advice imo. What AT said is correct, since a lot of people have another full time job I think the real success as a trader comes in your risk adjusted returns, this is why I’m always talking about investing when the probability is way on your side to make money in something, that doesn’t mean it always happens but if I’m doing it that way and say I have my money at work 1/3 of the time and I make the same exact amount trading during that 1/3 of the time as someone that is invested all the time then I’m doing much better than they are, the other 2/3 of the time I can be in fixed income while they are probably losing money or moving nowhere.

Also DL and AT said above if that’s all you do, and you are risking larger sums of money to only make $30k per year, that’s not that great and you’d probably be better off getting a different job. I don’t know why you’d take on all the stress for that kind of money. I’m only guessing but I think that most of the people you are following on this site dedicate far more than 20 hrs. per week to this, even those that don’t do it full time. I could be wrong but I don’t think so. I’m involved with the markets 55-80 hours almost every single week for the last 7.5 years but this is my job. I’m also young, don’t have any kids and have staff point being I’m sure a lot of people here have way more to deal with on a weekly basis and just don’t have the option to dedicate that much time to it. One of the best things is what DL talked about, some days I will not work at all, not that I do that very often, but I have the option, most people don’t.

for me, there isn’t really anything else I’d rather do, this is it.

Please disregard

“I’m c0nfused and need clarification. Is it ” 60% long since March” or ” … 70% cash and 30% stocks …” that I believe you may have said in June of this year?

my notes were ass backwards after reviewing an interview you did on Yahoo Finance, tech ticker on June 16.

My apologies for the question and any negative inference.

j

I’m c0nfused and need clarification. Is it ” 60% long since March” or ” … 70% cash and 30% stocks …” that I believe you may have said in June of this year?

Excerpts: Nasty Fed Emails | The Big Picture
The recovery will be different, and look different, because it is a long slow ….. My current allocations are about 70% cash and 30% stocks in my trading …
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/06/nasty-fed-emails/

Thanks

While we are at it, are there other simple mechanisms that are never disclosed to the public that they can do to safeguard their investments?