8 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 24.4 ms ] thread
What I would like to see is "What if Bob only invested after a big crash."
What I would like to see is "What if Bob only invested using advice from the interwebs?"
Bob ends up with 4.4 billion dogecoins.
Adjusted for inflation, he ends up with 480k relative to his original investment.
Sure, but part of the point of investing is so your money at least keeps up with inflation. Because by not investing anything and keeping it in savings, your money will eventually trend toward worthless.
Except you can buy inflation adjusted bonds, right?
Would have been nice if each investment was broken out. basically if you don't invest in your 20s your screwed.
The problem with these analyses is that nobody invests in "the market". What I have wanted to see for a while is returns on an average investment.

I've seen charts, for example, showing the Dow Jones from the 1929 crash to the present day, showing better returns over the long run than other investments.

However, nobody invests in the Dow Jones as a whole for 80 years. More likely, an average investor invests in a mroe or less random retail mutual fund for 20-30 year.

So, I would like to see the returns on the most popular mutual funds, or stock investment vehicles, over a shorter period of years. I think that would give us a more realistic pictures of what returns on "investing in the stock market" are likely to be like.