"The Lost Decade"

[Retire Soon]

Irrelevant comparison. Vanguard Total Stock Market is over 70% US Large cap, 99.7% US. You would have lost the benefits of developed foreign stocks, emerging markets, REITs and bonds, all of which outperformed the S&P 500 over that period.

And yes, Browning gave an accurate portrayal of US Large Cap stocks, but that's only 30% of the stock market. He agrees.

Regarding the comment about needing to buy unpopular stocks way back when, actually, you don't. You buy all the asset classes and hold all of them all them time. Rebalancing should actually be rare.

Hey, maybe there's a better way to invest. I hope you find it. But it helped me retire 15 years before my peers. Good luck.

Who ever said anything about investing your porfolio solely in Vanguard Total Stock Market? I would not recommend that to my worst enemy.

 

[TickTock]

My understanding (and this comes from Wiliam Bernstein, because I don't really care what Bogle thinks-- I respect him and love Vanguard, just don't care what his opinion on the market is) is that what he dislikes is UNHEDGED CURRENCY international investing. Doesn't like currency exchange rate risk. They certainly offer a lot of international index funds.

I think most of the international funds Vanguard offers started after Bogle left and Brennan took over. I don't think any of those are currency hedged.

 

[ziggy29]

I think most of the international funds Vanguard offers started after Bogle left and Brennan took over. I don't think any of those are currency hedged.

Some may disagree, but to me, adding "currency risk" to the portfolio adds diversification. Often when the market is struggling, the dollar is falling. When that happens, any allocation you have to investments that benefit from a falling dollar might hold their own -- perhaps energy shares, gold shares and unhedged international stocks and bonds.

Of course, it works the other way too (i.e. they fall when the dollar strengthens), but usually currency movements don't occur in lockstep with the U.S. stock market so there is some volatility-dampening effect in many market conditions.