Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by misnamed 2017 days ago
> Only 1 of the original companies of the Dow Jones is still in it today

Small companies become bigger, driving returns. That's why you don't just buy the DJIA but rather index the whole market. Of course there will be turnover - the point isn't to lock into any one stock - don't look for the needle, buy the haystack (i.e. a broader-market index).

If you want to include crypto in the haystack, sure, fine, whatever, but at market weights, it's going to be a very small portion of the investable market of stocks, bonds, cash and other asset classes. At some point, it's enough to just keep it simple and broad. A fraction of percent of this or that won't make or break a diversified portfolio.

1 comments

That depends on how good you are at finding needles :)

The thing not many people seem to talk about is that the 20th century had unprecedented growth in terms of population around the world (which has slowed significantly in the last few decades, although the effects usually lag by quite a bit - when the children enter the workforce and such). We're making up for some of it with technological progress, but ultimately what impact that makes is up to everyone to think about individually (look at Japan as a potential leading indicator of what demographic change can do).

Statistically, everyone trading across all different asset classes evens out, so ... sure, if you're consistently good at finding needles, power to you. Most people aren't. Many people however think they are. I prefer not to worry about it either way.