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Message:: [QUOTE="GoldFinger1969, post: 2093249, member: 73489"]But an index like the S&P 500 doesn't include many small-caps which would bias it upwards.  And studies have shown that any bias to Cowles or Siegel's data is miniscule. You think including losers is going to take a 10% annual return over decades down by hundreds of basis points (100 bp. = 1%) ?  'Aint happening !<img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> What serious researchers ?  John Bogle is a critic of Wall Street and even he wouldn't dispute the returns from stocks over decades of investing. Investing in fraud isn't stock investing.  That's like me including investing in those 3 AM infomercial coin shows and paying $200 for a $50 coin and including it in an index of PCGS and NGC investment-quality coins. An investment in a DJIA or S&P 500 index -- what I am talking about -- would have included comparable companies 150 years ago:  telegrams....Standard Oil....oil companies...railroads....newspapers....mining companies. Very volatile, but positive returns. I've read lots of books on the markets as a CFA and CFP. Wikepedia says 16%, I think it's high: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929</a> It was much more than 1%, trust me. It's not about believing what I want to believe, it's about believing FACTS.  You didn't cite facts refuting my post, you cited outliers that aren't relevant to the question at hand. If you believe what you say, than stock investing today and years ago was a Losers Proposition and history has shown that to be false. I ran the numbers and had them cited on CNBC: if you invested at the PEAK of the 1929 market, with divends reinvested, you got even by 1943. If you invested an equal amount of $$$ in 1929 and every year thereafter (and bought at the peak of each year, the worst market-timing), you were EVEN by 1936. Stocks work if you let them. Of course, stock investing was more difficult for the masses in the 1920's and even more so in the late-1800's.  If you weren't rich, you probably couldn't take the risk.  It was the Wild West of Speculation, not investing. What retail brokers were around in 1802-1805 ?  You're using the days when trading in stocks was done under a tree down at Wall and Broad to illustrate a point ? We are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the end of fixed commissions on Wall Street in a few months. I'll use my mother's IRA since I manage it to provide examples:<ul> <li>In 1974, to buy 100 shares of AAPL stock (which she owns because of my online article extolling the company at the bottom in 2013 <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />) the purchase would be about $12,000 and the commission would be about $400 or about 3%.</li> <li>In the 1980's the same commission would cost about $120 or about 1%</li> <li>By 2000, the same trade cost about $30 or 0.25%.</li> <li>Today, it costs about $12 or 0.1%.</li> </ul>If you know what you are doing -- a key variable, I admit -- it's NEVER been easier to be a DIY investor. But you have to educate yourself and read and learn...and if you don't have the time or want to expend the effort, then pay a pro to do it for you and spread your $$$ around wisely.[/QUOTE]

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