Maybe the index never goes to zero, but your return can easily be zero or even negative! What would have happened if I bought SPY five years ago and held long? Hmmm....
now i know why someone like stock777 has over 2,415 posts and has been on elitetrader.com for more than 4 years (over 1,460 days). that's almost 2 posts a day nonstop for the past 4 years.
your return could easily be zero or negative if you bought SPY yesterday (friday). it depends on timeframe. the only people that bought in, in 2000 were greedy$$$ people. they always buy in at the top.
Without saying further ..how many of those posts are contributing to one liners...snide remarks...opinions... vs. a Journal...a post about trading and good advice...a statement and not just replies... stock777 knows his stuff, but is entertained at ET... Michael B.
Buy every year after you see a decline of 8% or more. Buying just year 1999 or year 2000 of course hurts. If you are a believer in what you are doing (dollar cost averaging) and well tested your strategy, you are up quite a lot comparing to interest rate growth and the market return with respect to the year 2000 top. Remember, you cannot do that on a market cap based index like Nasdaq 100. It has to be a broad based index like S&P, Dow, etc.