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Message:: [QUOTE="Del Pinto, post: 2093212, member: 73128"]You're mistaken. Stock survivorship bias is embedded in most studies from Cowles to Siegel. The Index 'drops' stocks all the time: this skews performance upwards. This is a dirty little secret, but well-known to serious researchers. Wall Street isn't paying for the truth though. Red herring. But exactly! The imaginary retail investor didn't live in New York, and by the time news reached Topeka, the NY stock had already failed. Stock failures with TOTAL LOSS were much more common than today; an imaginary retail investor would almost certainly be the biggest loser then, as now. Real return was much, MUCH lower than those silly Wall St. #s thrown at and embraced by Greater Fools. Don't we all know better, here? I've seen stats that claim LESS THAN 1% of Americans had any direct investment in the stock market in 1928. Where do you get "10%"?  Again, focus on what's important: REAL INVESTOR COSTS. Telegraphing your broker wasn't free either, circa 1900. You can believe whatever you want to believe, I've only stated the facts easily found online. And we're not talking about CEFs today: we're talking about REAL historical investing costs for retail investors. I've done my part, now it's your turn. For $1,000. invested what was the total retail broker cost, to buy and sell shares in1802:1803:1804:1805:...2002:[/QUOTE]