Are you planning to be financially independent as early as possible so you can live life on your own terms? Discuss successful investing strategies, asset allocation models, tax strategies and other related topics in our online forum community. Our members range from young folks just starting their journey to financial independence, military retirees and even multimillionaires. No matter where you fit in you'll find that Early-Retirement.org is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!
You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with our members, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create a retirement blog, send private messages and so much, much more!
IMHO, equities have a future and, like JP Morgan, I am confident that their future will involve fluctuations. Beyond that, who knows? I hope it's a good one though because we'll all have some pretty serious problems if equity markets don't provide reasonable returns to investors over the longer term.
__________________ "They were two old people facing the end of time." Charles Slack - Hetty
IMHO Long term, equities follow earnings. In the short term, they follow expectations of future earnings which can be affected by any number of fears and or greed.
If this is true, then you would have to expect corporate earnings to increase over the long term. Some will and some won't, but as a whole I expect they will increase, and stock prices will increase as a result.
__________________ It's odd when I think of the arc of my life, from child to young woman to aging adult. First I was who I was. Then I didn't know who I was. Then I invented someone, and became her. Then I began to like what I'd invented. And finally I was what I was again. It turned out I wasn't alone in that particular progression. Anna Quindlen
Retired Jun 2011
Advising my kids, I would suggest that, long term, equities offer the best hope of building a comfortable and early retirement. Having said that, I don't think of myself at 65 as having a "long-term" any more. There have been a few 30 year near-sideways markets (looks to me like we just might be in one). Still, equities are just about the only game in town for the CHANCE of long term growth.
My "solution" to the problem was to over-prepare for ER and have backups (to my backups) e.g., delay SS to 70 and "invest" in LTC insurance, etc., etc.. YMMV
__________________
Ko'olau's Law -
Anything which can be used can be misused. Anything which can be misused will be.
There are great companies (USA and abroad) that will do well. Their earnings (free cash flow) will reflect that and, as someone said, long term the price of their stock will follow earnings (free cash flow)
I am less bullish on stock market in general.
I don't generally follow ETFs or Mutual funds because their mandates restrict them (we are a large cap value fund, etc.)yet if I don't know the manager (and I don't) I wouldn't give them my money without mandates/restrictions so its a self-fulfilling failure. and that's BEFORE you get into premiums/discounts to NAV.
__________________ ...way down here, you need a reason to move
My best guess is that stocks will trend slowly higher for the next 8-10 years at a snails pace maybe 3-5% a year. Around 2020-2025 we'll see another bubble like the late 90's with huge growth (20% a year returns in the markets) followed by another collapse around 2030. I don't anticipate another huge recession coming anytime soon... low likelihood we'll see a significant drop in the market anytime in the next 15 years (which is definitely against popular opinion). We've seen the worst of it... for this quarter century
If history is any indication... this cycle continues indefinitely.
Linear Mode
