I don't know about "best." It seems some of their alpha comes from political funding/cheerleading/lobbying and investing with information and connections the rest of us don't have. This is especially true of Buffett in the last few years.
Just think of owning your very own train company ! Could play trains all day Will the old hobos of yester year make a come back ? Much of American folk lore are songs written about the old depression days.
No idea about the the source of their alpha. Can only say that their long term records beat everyone else.
Do a little research. Buffet did very well with classic value investing for a few decades--no question. Then he did poorly in the 90s tech-oriented bull market. Then he totally mucked up a silver trade circa 2005 (a year earlier or later would've made all the difference). Since then, he's been the #1 cheerleader for bailouts (that support his investments) and involved in a lot of things like this: http://www.businessinsider.com/pete...comments=all#comment-4eca5a6769bedd9919000025 Amazingly, very few people ever call him out on this as he goes around speaking and doing interviews.
.......................................... if you start a depression, the hobos just show up......... cheers, s
The retirement age is immaterial. What matters is the number of years worked and the total contribution into the plan, and the type of plan of course. The retired teacher mentioned in the link contributed to his pension plan for forty years. He may have worked in a high cost of living area where salaries are unusually high. This is the kind of article that will get readers attention and increase web traffic -- the type of article you find on CNN or Fox news-- but it contains no useful information. The return from a retirement plan may be exponential because of compounding of returns on invested contributions. Those with an above average number of years of contributions may find their payout grows rather dramatically during their last few years before retirement.
Frankly, the conclusions of some of the contributors to this thread are absurd considering the lack of important details in the link.