Photogenic Experts With Soothing Platitudes Have Tempting Proposal
The Way We Live Now: putting on our best suit, looking you square in the eye, and instructing you to do something. That "something" is to get back into the stock market, immediately. We expect our advice to be followed.
You may be aware of the theory that Businessweek is a rock-solid financial counter-indicator; that is, as soon as a company appears on the cover of Businessweek as the Next Big Thing, short its stock immediately, because it's bound to crash and burn. We subscribe to this theory in full, because we know that the real quality financial information here in America is purveyed by USA Today. You can hardly run into a billionaire on the street without knocking a copy of USA Today out of his hands, and, after you've picked it up, engaging in a lengthy conversation about the quality of that publication's "Money" section.
So when USA Today proclaims that it's time to "get back into stocks," you can be sure that savvy financiers from Wall Street to other favorite financier hangouts are doing just that. Still not convinced? Look a little closer at that headline, friend: "Experts agree."
One expert would be persuasive in his own right. But an entire group of experts, in agreement on a single topic? In the pages of USA Today? It's difficult to conjure up any scenario in which the advice they're giving is not advice that should be expeditiously adopted by you, the fortunate readers.
Other, lesser newspapers may herald news of tax bills and bailout costs and how the entire lot of you reading this are nothing but "dumb money." The savvy investor does not allow himself to be distracted by the murmurings of the rabble herd. Buy stocks, yes, and bide your time. When USA Today is long forgotten, compound interest will still be a mathematical delight.
Seriously, buy and hold 20 years. In the meantime, keep hustling.