Just wanted to drop a quick thanks in this thread.
I am a devout index investor, but my resolve has wavered at times over the past 18 months. I found many reasons to believe that we were in an era that was different, that we were on the edge of destruction.
About a month ago, a few folks on this thread suggested John C. Bogle's book "The Little Book of Commonsense Investing." I read it over the holidays and it was like getting hit with a bolt of lightning.
I had always viewed equity investing as speculative, that stock prices were going up and down based on wars and plagues and elections. While that's true *in the short term*, long-term investment in the entire stock market, in a low-cost index fund, has no speculative dimension. It is an investment in American (or global) business, in workers, in innovation. It is an investment in the power of people solving problems and serving each other.
Over the course of decades, that investment is always going to go up, because returns are not based on speculation, they are based on earnings, dividends and increases in valuation that are based on evidence.
The book is so brilliant, because it debunks every argument against index fund investing and every reason to follow emotion.
As a Boglehead, I am not investing in stocks, I am investing in business.
Thank you.