[jrochkind1]

How do you figure?

I was thinking the opposite: that the model of saving for retirement via investment accounts requires good returns in the early part of your career, so the smaller amounts of money you can afford to put away for your relatively smaller early career salary can compound over your career length to be enough for retirement.

[iforgetti]

What others wrote was pretty much my reasoning but a bit further, over the very long run (30+ years) markets will revert to mean performance. If you have strong gains in the first half of your career then when you are in your peak earning years, investments will be more expensive at time of purchase. As a result when you are investing the most, returns on that principle will be lower.

[bart_spoon]

Isn't this just the gambler's fallacy? Yes, markets over a given period of time will likely conform to a particular distribution of performance, with some below-average periods and above-average periods that average out. But that does not mean that if there is an extended time period of terrible performance now, X years from there is likely to be a very strong rebound to compensate.

[iforgetti]

What you wrote is true about the performance of the underlying businesses but not necessarily true about an investment.

Stock performance (and any investment) is driven by both cost of purchase and underlying performance. Cost is driven by human psychology as much or more than business fundamentals.

As a result, poor stock performance is in some way an indicator of future improved investment performance because it corresponds with lower purchase price but as you note, deterioration of economic performance is absolutely not an indicator of improved future economic performance.

[markvdb]

Let me guess OP's reasoning.

Most of the HN audience is privileged class by courtesy of being tech savvy. Unlike many others, most of us can keep investing even in less fortunate times when others cannot. Exactly those investments might yield extra high long term returns.

[francisofascii]

Assume for a moment that stocks are currently overvalued from a historical perspective. So it is better if they stay flat for a while and get back to normal valuations so when you buy them each month, they are not overvalued. If they were to go up in the next few years, they would become even more overvalued and you would be buying them at even more overvalued prices.