[notch656a]

>"Never, never get out of the market."

Cash is a market though, just a different market. If you hold cash you're in a particular market, one that has earned significant returns measured against equities this year. (of course, depending on timespan you may want to pick _which_ market you think best)

It's been strange indeed. My highest yielding investment the past couple years was buying a new vehicle. Conventional wisdom says new vehicles are horrible investment, but in this market it's exceeded yields of every single asset in my pretty diverse basket.

[atombender]

In the context of Bogle's statement (and the parent's comment), it was the stock market, specifically index funds.

It goes back to the realization that no investor can predict the peaks or troughs of the market, so getting out of the market is effectively trying to time it. One may be lucky and get out at the peak and then buy back in at the bottom, but on average you will lose money this way.

[sumedh]

> If you hold cash you're in a particular market, one that has earned significant returns measured against equities this year.

What about the last 100 years?

[notch656a]

Depends. Pennies from 1920? Beat inflation. $20 coin from 1924 ($20 was worth an ounce of gold, so it was just an ounce gold goin)? Beat inflation.

Dollar bill from 1922? Lose, but mostly because the fed reneged on their obligation of gold backing.

I believe If you held 100 years from 1805 to 1905 there wasn't much inflation at all.

So it really depends.

[TameAntelope]

Not during the last 100 years, for the last 100 years.

The whole point is you have no clue when the bear market will end, and a lot of the recovery happens in the first few days (or sometimes even just the one day) of the new bull market.

Trying to pull in or out means you miss out on the best gain days.

[kqr]

So the refinement of the statement might be "never, never move your allocation to 100 % of a single asset."

(But since you speak of a diverse basket, you probably know this already.)