Yea, that's all great in theory and easy to say now.
What's easy to say?? You quoted me saying that lots of people here will totally try to dissuade anyone from cashing out of stocks who gets freaked out by 'the next big crash'. I think that statement's
almost guaranteed to be true. It's a sentiment that's
already been made here by plenty of regulars (and MMM himself), so it's not exactly like I need a crystal ball to point it out.
But you're not even arguing that they won't try to dissuade those getting freaked out. You're basically just repeating the idea that people
will get freaked out. Ok. I never said no one would.
But I would say MOST people here, especially Millennials, have never experienced such a drop in the market-
You
might be right, but
are you? How do you know how old everyone here is and assume "MOST" hadn't been in the market during the last crash -which was only at the end of 2008?? Your imagination is not valid proof.
If anything, they ought to at least KNOW about that crash, and know that all the money came back (and far more). And all the dummies who swore off Wall Street's 'ponzi scheme' missed out on tons of profits.
You go on to invent a whole scenario of someone losing their job and being desperate for cash that has
nothing to do with what I wrote. Those sort of people would be just as screwed no matter what their asset allocation. I was only talking about what misguided 'fear' shouldn't make people do.
Feel free to argue with what I wrote, but don't pretend to argue against things I didn't write at all.
For the record... if someone had tragically bad timing and put a lump sum in the market in 2000 instead of a 25/75 split, they'd only be a little down today compared to the 25/75 split. That's hitting the two biggest market crashes in anyone's lifetime. And that I know based on the reasonable assumption that no one here was invested during the Great Depression.
If someone started investing consistently in 2000, they'd be a tiny bit ahead by being 100% stocks.
If they retired at that time on the 4% rule, they'd only be a tiny bit behind.
At almost any other time... 100% stocks would put someone
way ahead of a fund with a good chunk of bonds.
Maybe instead of repeatedly scaring people and underestimating them, we should try to make them braver by being better educated?