So much For You "Cash Is King" Guys
Q: I still have some bonds, but I did start moving down the yield curve and reducing my overall exposure many years ago with eyes wide open that I might be, and probably was doing so prematurely, but I have made many orders of magnitude more in the last few years playing the stock market aggressively than I ever could have made in bonds so I really don't miss them.
A:
Of course you've managed to forget that the orders of magnitude
more money was made by moving from bonds to stocks, not more
frequent trading of bonds. You also don't seem to understand that
CDs and bonds are much more "efficient" markets with only
small differentials between instruments. This is in no way true
of the stock market.
Being in bonds is "more aggressive". Being in a equity growth
fund long-term "more aggressive" than bonds. Trading stocks
in 3-9 month cycles in "pretty aggressive". Day trading may
be "much too aggressive".
You absolutely don't know what you're talking about, even though
I've explained it carefully in fairly small words. Repeatedly.
And recently, in this very friggin' thread, but also many times, over years.
With examples and math and statistics and stuff.
What I like about the stock market is that just about EVERY year
you can find stocks that move at least 100% (and generally much
more) in just a few months if you work to find them (well, maybe
not YOU, but an intelligent hardworking person). That was true to
my personal experience in the '70s, 80's, 90's, and has continued to be
true in the early years of the new millenium. It may or may not be true
in the future but probably will be true then, too (but as discipline
I always expect it to never again be true).
When I was into bonds I was proud that I was making like 15%
a year most years. But I knew I was passing up 100s of percent
in stocks. But then I've actually passed up much more money
that I probably ever will make for reasons that aren't even clear
to me (several times I've turned down jobs that were worth tens of
$millions, for great reasons like "I just want to hang at the beach
this summer").
I'm just taking what I already knew was there these days, that's
all. And that's all I meant by "aggressively". Hell, I've got to do it,
my 401Ks are losing money, I've gotta have sumpin for my liver-spotted
years.
Sure, that's easy. You just get the Wall Street Journal on December
31st of the year, then look to see which stocks moved at least 100%.
Oh, did you mean BEFORE they move? That's funny; if you could do that,
you would have all the money in the world in a couple of decades.
Compound interest at 100% (or more) has that result.