China Mobile is the most obvious buy&hold play for the next 10 years. Everyone in Asia loves their cell phones even the poorest folks. Right now I think its a little expensive, but would be a buyer on any dip from here. It pays a dividend and has rock solid financials. Best long term play out there right now. Buy and hold for 10 years...
Mark Cuban is a respectable idiot I think. I understand his point and he is correct that the true lizards are the money managers who are trying to keep up with their peers. They're the used car salesmen of the markets...don't know anything about stocks but sell sell sell those concepts. The deregulation that allowed banks to "help" people invest in the mid-90's probably destroyed more wealth via uneducated fresh out of school bank folk touting the great gains of the markets vs. other diversified and safe plans. Long Term Capital is a prime example. You have to be smarter than most...I think Mark Cuban is addressing the fund managers and suits, not us who don't heed to the call of what our bosses say. We make money off the markets regularly...we're not the average investors for the most part and although Cuban has some points about being careful in the market "long term" he is also an idiot for not realising that you do invest in a company and you do so because you expect that company to make more money in the future or become more valuable in some way. What is wrong with that? Anywhere you go to try and place your money you'll get screwed if you're not careful. Is he advocating real estate as a safe investment? Bonds? Baseball cards? You can get screwed in any of these and many people, those who are 401k and IRA regulars ONLY will never be able to retire well unless they contribute to these funds which places their money where? Where else? The markets. Mark Cuban is just out to blow himself sometimes I think...but he does point out that the scum money managers are scum money managers...but his vision is short-sighted and while you can't knock the guy for the amount of money he has made or what he's done with it, he's a pretty big fool and one can't help but believe that he's luckier than he is smart.
The stock market is the pinnacle point of capitalism in that debt is not required...and the hope for a no interest loan ...namely stock will outperform debt over time.... What one must realize is that it is good that there are lots of less than stellar players,,,,and if the story changed to some form of a more organized approach to the markets...this would be a bad sign for the overall health of the market... You do not kill the goose that lays your golden eggs..... Having quite a bit of non stellar approaches....just makes more room for the stellar approaches..... It is very important to keep all the weakly informed...and best informed... hopefuls alive and well....
Come on, I refuted this 2 months ago, do you want me to go there again? The best summary on Cuban is what Dafugginman wrote, I completely agree...
You are right...I do the same thing. I invest in long term stuff like private equity and trade in my short term account. I was trying to point out how the media (eg. Fool.com and some other blogs) has changed from telling us to buy the dips to just buy every month, refuting some academic advice about long term mean reversion and portfolio rebalancing. Why even some bears from 2006 are recommending 70% stocks. Some how I picked your message to quote; I didn't mean to attack you.
Pekelo is correct. On a monthly rolling basis, the inflation-adjusted S&P 500 index (or its proxy) had a negative return over 20 year periods about 25% of the time since 1891. Declines greater than 20% occurred in 1 out of 5 20-year periods. The most recent negative 20-year period ended June 1989. Dividends are not reflected in those statistics, however, they would not have completely erased all historical deficits (largest was -67% for period ending June 1921).
Less empirically but equally revealing, get hold of a 50 year old newspaper and look at how many names you recognise on the stock page. IMHO Fool are just that. They make such a big deal about picking a handful of stocks that doubled - like all of these newsletter gurus. I am respectful of their web/consumer marketing skills but completely unimpressed disinterested in their advice.