Joseph Moore

Well, this time is always different because the market is always different.

So the stocks that you buy today have nothing in common with the stocks your grandfather bought.

So when your grandfather bought a stock, he was buying a share of future profits at today's prices because from the Washington administration until Michael Jackson's Thriller album,

dividends were 92, 96% of all the profits investors made.

Prices didn't go up.

In fact, the Dow Jones was lower when I was a boy than when my dad was a boy.

So the idea of stocks going up in their price was unusual.

You got dividends and you reinvested those dividends or you lived on them.

Today, since then, price appreciation is well over 70% of all of the gains in the market.

And only one in five stocks even give a dividend.

In fact, 96% of stocks don't beat treasury bills.

So everything is in the price appreciation of the index and the most concentrated stocks.

Well, that means you're not buying what your grandpa bought.

You are buying a share of future buyers at today's prices.

You are assuming one day, 20 and 30 years hence, someone else will want this at a higher price than I paid for it, which is not at all what your grandfather was betting on.

So...

The market itself changes dramatically over time.

And most of the people who get rewarded for investing your money either haven't thought about it or simply don't care because that's not their job.

Their job is to get your money moved to the market and keep this river flowing downstream.

Now, I'm not saying it won't work.