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Nope. I've been riding them since the 1987 crash. Each one you ignore makes the next one easier. And as a regular saver you should wish for these, as stocks are on sale at especially low prices. This is why dollar cost averaging works so well.

Good job. Now the copilot's checklist: Sit down. Shut up. Hang on.

I usually measure portfolio performance over five year or longer periods. One volatile day tells you nothing except that you had a lucky day. It really means nothing, especially in the current market. But it feels good, I agree. Actually there is a danger with this. Read Jason Zweig's "Your...

I'll still bet that hamburger that you might be "closet indexing" without realizing it. (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/closetindexing.asp)

That's a lot. Have you tried Portfolio Visualizer (https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/)? I suggest comparing this portfolio to a single total US market fund or, if you have significant international exposure, to two total market funds -- one US and one International. I'd bet a Big Mac that...

This. When I was looking at log programs I found that many were happy to import various formats but few or none would export. Lock-in IOW. I ended up writing my own logbook program that uses the Microsoft Jet (aka Access) database. I agree on putting in all your flights. As I entered from...

Don't feel bad. Just look here: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Taylor_Larimore%27s_market_timing_quotes

Here is a pretty good video of Fama and Thaler discussing the EMH. Both agree that your (and my) going-in assumption should be the EMH, but the discussion of behavioral finance/emotional price distortions is very good...

@tspear mentioned the S&P 500 as a benchmark. Given a fairly boring and rainy day, I'll add a few comments on benchmarks: When the S&P SPIVA reports evaluate active managers each category of fund gets its own benchmark. Large cap funds probably are benchmarked against the S&P or the Russell...

Gee, I wonder why no one ever thought of that before. :D :D But, hey, if you're happy then that's all that matters in the end.

Bill Miller who was at Legg Mason? The story I remember about him is that he was hailed as a genius for beating his benchmark over ten years and then in the next two years he lost more customer money than he had ever made for people. A statistician calculated that the probability of someone...

Not once you understand that you are dealing with random events, events that no one can forecast. Yup. You and ten million others. Some of you will be right but it won't be due to skill. It will be due to luck. Nassim Taleb's very good book "Fooled by Randomness" discusses the problems where...

Thank you. I hope you're right since we have a lot of money bet on this horse. None of the above. Those are all US stock market indices. VTWAX probably tracks the MSCI ACWI (All Country World Index) fairly closely. But the nice thing about passive investing is I don't have to worry about any...

Well "ETF" is not precise enough. The statistically proven winning strategy is to buy low cost, broad market funds. Individual stock picking is a fine hobby but it is not a sound investing strategy. On the equity side my wife and I have very serious money, 90% of our portfolio, in VTWAX...

Wow ... thread drift! I'll add some points: Most people don't understand that stock prices are essentially random. Markowitz' original paper, in 1952, is the foundation of Modern Portfolio Theory which is based on an assumption of randomness. From that came, for example, the notion of an...

Life is too short. Not interested in your changing the subject and trying to start a new argument. Agree, though, that sector ETFs are a very bad idea. If you want to control how your investment is allocated, all you have to do is to buy individual stocks. No need to ***** about the...

(To be clear here, we are talking about index funds and ETFs, most of which are index funds.) No. An index fund's holdings are based on an "index" like the S&P 500 (example: SPY) or on holding the total US market (Example: VTSMX), 3600 stocks. No index fund uses "performance based measures."...

There is so much wrong with this that it is just not worthwhile to pick it apart. Folks, remember that not everything you read on the internet is accurate.

Wow! I'm sorry to hear about your stock market. What planet do you live on?