Olde Hornet
Well-Known Member
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/in...102016?link=topStories&linkLocation=Position1
What was the idea behind the book's title?
This should be a winner's game. In the long run, certainly over all the historical periods that I examined, investing should have multiplied your wealth even if you made a succession of errors.
But people have a tendency to undercut themselves and shoot themselves in the foot. You're taking what is so clearly a winner's game, with the power of compound interest working in your favor, and you're hurting yourself. It's very, very simple, although not very easy, to affect your odds positively.
What do you think investors actually do right?
A minority of investors do the right thing for the right reason. And I think probably an even larger group of people do the right thing but not for the right reason. They do it through inertia.
There's a lot of anecdotal evidence and some hard evidence that some people—who may be intimidated by finance or don't know much about it—are fortunate. They fall into a pattern of putting away money in a passive way and not reacting or even being aware of scary headlines. Either they're mentally able not to react or they're oblivious. Either way, they're doing themselves a huge favor by leaving things more or less on autopilot.
What was the idea behind the book's title?
This should be a winner's game. In the long run, certainly over all the historical periods that I examined, investing should have multiplied your wealth even if you made a succession of errors.
But people have a tendency to undercut themselves and shoot themselves in the foot. You're taking what is so clearly a winner's game, with the power of compound interest working in your favor, and you're hurting yourself. It's very, very simple, although not very easy, to affect your odds positively.
What do you think investors actually do right?
A minority of investors do the right thing for the right reason. And I think probably an even larger group of people do the right thing but not for the right reason. They do it through inertia.
There's a lot of anecdotal evidence and some hard evidence that some people—who may be intimidated by finance or don't know much about it—are fortunate. They fall into a pattern of putting away money in a passive way and not reacting or even being aware of scary headlines. Either they're mentally able not to react or they're oblivious. Either way, they're doing themselves a huge favor by leaving things more or less on autopilot.