There continues to be more and more media attention that the ‘buy and hold’ strategy is dead. That Modern Portfolio Theory no longer works. This is another attempt by the Wall Street bullies to keep your money on the move.

There are an increasingly amount of ‘experts’ extolling the underperformance of equities for the near future. These ‘experts’ have an obvious conflict of interest as they recommend their own solution.

I even heard of a late-night show comedian saying that there is a recession coming. Unbelievable, Now, there may be a recession coming but no one can predict when and how long, not even a celebrity.

True investors are much better served using a passive management strategy and utilizing Modern Portfolio Theory and ‘buy and hold’. This strategy, over the long term will lead to success. It should be emphasized that ‘buy and hold’ should really be ‘buy and rebalance’.  ‘Buy and hold’ might signify set and forget and we must rebalance back to our target allocation periodically. This entails buying low and selling high, automatically.

When we rebalance we sell asset classes that have done well and buy asset classes that have done poorly, short term. Buy low, sell high. This is done periodically and eliminates the need to forecast the future.

There is some confusion as to, what is an investor? Many believe that a successful investor makes more than their peers all the time. This they believe is measured on a short-term basis.

A true investor will make comparisons of 10-year performance and perhaps longer. It might be ok to compare 5-year performance. But investing is a long-term disciplined process. When you compare performance on a short-term basis. Like monthly or worse daily, you are really a speculator not an investor.

Now its ok to be a speculator, but if you have a long-term goals like retirement planning. Being a speculator will lead to disappointing long-term results.

To be successful, investors, no matter how large, would be far better off using a passive strategy with Modern Portfolio Theory as part of the process. Modern Portfolio Theory is actually part of a larger strategy called Free Market Portfolio Theory. 

Remember no strategy always looks like the right thing to do. We must continue to believe the free markets do work.  Most importantly we must believe in our strategy and remain disciplined.

We must own equities….. globally diversify ……. rebalance.