Only flat if your entire investing horizon exists between those 12 years and you only bought shares in March 2000. If you bought anything in-between, then for you the market was not flat. If you bought shares in 2009 and looked at just those shares in 2012 you'd never stop grinning.
Well there's more than one way to get from 30 to 30. Sure, if I bought at 30 and then it instantly dropped to 15 and I kept buying then when it got back to 30 I'd be in ok shape. But what if it first went to 45 while I kept buying, and then when it dropped to 15 I stopped buying? As I said my (self employed) income was heavily tied to the current economy and in bad years I didn't have as much, or any, to invest. So I missed out on most of the "good deals". In my case, when we eventually get back to 30 and I'm even on some things, still underwater on others. But at least I'm buying again. Further down the road I've made some on the 30 shares but I've still only broken even on the 45s. It's not a scheme for massive gains. These are all examples of course, not actual precise descriptions. The truth is that I do not have my statements from 20 years ago and after passing between 4 different brokerages there is no single account that I can reference to see total amount contributed vs current balances. I'm just ballparking based on what I know I used to try to contribute, the years I know I didn't contribute at all, etc.
Maybe I don't understand something here. Were you just investing a lump sum and not investing any more money for each decade? If you were actually in DJIA 2010 to 2016 you wouldn't have lost anything. Your story isn't clear and there is more to it than what you are portraying I believe.
I am trying to be as transparent as possible. Anything that sounds off compared to expected performance is not intentional and most likely reflects my poor moves early on combined with lack of detailed persistent records. Keep in mind that in my younger years I was not savvy enough to seek out low cost funds like what I'm currently in. Instead I was working with people who were putting me into front-loaded investments and funds with high fees. After 4 years of not making much progress I'd get frustrated and move elsewhere, only to restart the front-load cycle in most cases (again, not realizing these things at the time, just using brilliant logic like "hey this guy (literally) drives a Ferrari and I drive a Toyota, he must know something, right?!").
So while the 2000 - 2012 period had me in funds they certainly weren't good funds. This set me up for thinking that individual stocks and having a more actively managed portfolio by an even more brilliant financial planner was the real key. 2012 to 2016 amounted to me checking in with him annually saying things like "by my calculation all this 'fancy' stuff you are doing has me basically breaking even with a Vanguard index (the latter of which was on my radar by then thankfully), except that I then have to pay you 1% on top". Then I finally pulled the plug. So yes, it's a shit show, not a history I'm proud of. I should probably own more of the blame personally than I do, but the disgruntled part of me just says "dammit, if only I were 12 years older I could have bungled my way through a 550% increase in the Dow period vs a 0% increase period. Somehow it seems like that would have put me in a very different place numerically and mentally. Losing market gains is one thing, losing actual earned income is another.
But anyway, we're on to better things now. Thanks for the responses, apologies for the whining ;)