Everyone is chasing the dream of early retirement. Beating the stock market by a very small margin is a real challenge and push us all to think differently....not easy.
That's a very good question - I kept it simple. Let's call it 10ys or 1 full economic cycle to make things interesting. Forward looking of course, hindsight is no good.
The safest way to make 1% per month ---> The easiest way to lose >> 1% per month is by investing and trading. Because the majority will lose money.
The compounding/drawdown question is irrelevant in my view at this stage, it has a deminimis effect anyways. let's call it $1m for guidance. He is a self-employed structural engineer (bridges, tunnels, etc...) and interested in the financial markets - well equipped in resources, time and skill to either trade or buy and hold.
imagine you bought GE at $450, 20 years ago. GE is a blue chip, large cap company. Now it is worth $100 only. Those who bought Lehman's Brothers at around $40 to $80 in ~ 2005 and hold very long regretted buying a blue-chip company. Then there is Baring Banks, a very established reputable bank and ...... within a few hours, the stock price dropped to zero. And ....
GOOG (which I gave as an example) was at $262 10 years ago, it's at $2916 today. So what's your point?
Is it really though, if you went out and bought one today....and factored in all your operating costs and vacancies using actual historical values? I know folks who bought even a couple years ago might see this. But that's really reflecting the fact that real estate prices popped and they aren't paying a note on the current market value of the building while getting market rents. That cuts both ways, of course, as we all remember from 2008.