MediumTex wrote:
If someone simply read all of the hand wringing posts from 2015, it would probably come as a surprise that all of that angst was over a 2.9% loss for the year.
I hope that 2016 gives us something to feel better about.
Good to have you back, MT. When you disappear for weeks or months, it makes me think of that scene from Forrest Gump where he runs back and forth across the US and there is a hairy hoard of harriers following close behind. At a certain point he just gets bored and announces that he is going home.
I don't really get why the PP dips affect younger/working investors so much. When one is close to retirement, however, any significant dip is rough... at least that is how it feels to me. The PP gave us all a big head fake in January of 2015 and then trended lower from there. And the eventual-fraud mathjak was there to fan any flame he could. A little pressure applied in the correct place can do a lot of damage. In this case people on here started focussing more and more on how their portfolios were doing on a day-to-day basis. In a low-nominal-return environment, that is bound to drive people nuts.
I actually think that our current situation (high stock & bond valuations, extremely low cash yields, gold generally trending lower) is an excellent stress test for the PP. I guess it's also a stress test for many of the folks on here (me included) who want to fiddle with percentages or fret about the injustice of it all.
Question for you, MT... Do you still believe that the odds of prosperity, inflation, deflation & recession are about equal? I remember that from your Jake podcast and thought it was an excellent way of looking at this mix of assets. That way of thinking of things is almost the same as just being agnostic about the future but not quite. Thanks.