[coliveira]

There is empirical evidence that people only come up with this "average" on periods when the market is at the top. If you did your calculations around 2008 you would see a very different picture.

It is easy to be bullish on the market when everything seems to be doing well; a wise person needs to look at different periods, and see that the stock market also has produced a lot of disasters. People who lack this perspective are bound to be engulfed by such disasters. Heck, I hear that even professional investors, who are paid to buy stocks, are starting to take their money out of the market fearing of what might come next.

[chii]

> Heck, I hear that even professional investors who are paid to buy stocks, are starting to take their money out of the market fearing of what might come next.

and that's why most active managed funds perform worse than most passive index funds. that's why stock picking doesn't work for most (unless you're buffett). That's why timing the market doesn't work.

People are too emotional. If you stick to an algorithmic method (of putting in part of your paycheck every month), ride the ups and the downs (don't sell, don't take on debt to buy extra, unless you can afford the debt easily etc), you will come out ahead more times than behind.

[WalterBright]

> Heck, I hear that even professional investors, who are paid to buy stocks, are starting to take their money out of the market fearing of what might come next.

I hear that most every day, every year, every decade. There's always plenty of reasons to not invest. There's always an article in the financial news predicting imminent doom.

I ride them up, down, and back up again.