Whatever factors that propel the S&P to 20% rise in the last 12 months (and there's never a concensus on what those factors are), do we expect those to continue ad infinitum to drive the S&P 20%/year for decades to come?
I am reminded of that time in late 1999, when I got past the 7-figure mark and was well into it actually, I sat down to figure out when I would reach the multimillionaire status with that growth rate. Heh heh heh...
Some cataclysmic events happened to derail that projection, but even without them, one could not expect the tech boom to "boom" again and again. The Internet is great, but it could be invented only once. Need another major technical advance, and it does not come every year.
So, it took quite a few more years before I reached that mark, particularly as I lost 44% from the top in 2000/3/24 to 2002/10/09 (the NASDAQ lost 78% in the same period), and had to regain the millionaire status first. Heh heh heh...
PS. I kept a diary where I log the total value of my stash to the dollar everyday. It's so I can look back to see where I was, and try to remember what I was thinking at that point.