Letters to the Editor

Letters posted here are associated with the following article:
Consumer pessimism
Not since the unlamented days of the 1973 oil embargo have Americans felt as gloomy about the economy as they do now
Andrew Leonard [2008-03-25]
The letters thread is now closed.

  • Hear you on that one, makoweb

    I'm in my twenties, so no where near retirement. A holding period of about 10 years is the minimum to try to mitigate risks and achieve near historical bond and bills risk levels. If your holding period is 15 years stocks are at the same risk levels. At 20+ years, stocks become less risky than either bills or bonds. The total real return rate is much much higher than bonds or bills after 20+ years even if you manage to buy at the top of every bull market and hold. Forget about Gold, it is a terrible medium-long term investment. It has historically kept barely better than inflation over the long term.

    If your interested in historical market analysis and recommendations check out Jeremy Siegel's "Stocks for the Long Run" , it has to be the best investment book I've ever read. Potentially might be the best $35 I've ever spent. Even if your nearing retirement, the information and analysis it contains is fantastic.

    -- Keppie
    [Read Keppie's other letters]
    Tuesday, March 25, 2008 01:39 PM

  • A quick side note

    When reading Stocks for the Long Run. Jeremy implicitly assumes sometimes that people do the right thing with their portfolios, and I think that is a bad assumption. Also, I believe he is a supply sider.... so please do take what he has to offer with some grain of salt.

    -- Keppie
    [Read Keppie's other letters]
    Tuesday, March 25, 2008 01:50 PM

  • I'm surprised you actually knew that

    It's rare to come across people that actually have looked at the long term pictures and understand what the historical movements have actually been rather than just spouting the end line.

    But I have to ask (as I haven't read the book)...why not use one of the long term crossover strategies and just sit out during the bear markets. I've seen very simple moving average strategies that capture 96% of the gains over the past 100 years while only participating about 50% of the time. If you put the money in government bonds during the sitout times you would have a considerably more amount of money than staying in the whole time.

    -- makoweb
    [Read makoweb's other letters]
    Tuesday, March 25, 2008 01:57 PM

  • Historical Trends and Boomer retirements

    Greetings

    Several letters discussing "historical trends" and of course the market coming back after the 'Big Bear' is done feeding

    I think your charts are flawed overlooking a demographic truth:

    The first of the Baby Boomers (born 1946) reach early retirement age of 62 this year. They need to begin cashing those 401's as they soft shoe out the door drawing that early SocSec check....

    That's just the first of a tidal wave of boomers retiring

    They can't/won't wait 10/15/20 years for the market to rebound.

    How will those cash outs affect those trendlines?

    Long term is only true measure if conditions don't change ;)

    Enjoy the journey

    WarLord

    -- WarLord
    [Read WarLord's other letters]
    Tuesday, March 25, 2008 10:03 PM

Letters Help