> Jordan Hayes wrote:
>
> >For even better perspective, look at the 5 year one.
> >
> >http://quote.yahoo.com/q?s=^DJI&d=5y
>
> Looks kind of flat and toppy since 99Q2, doesn't it?
Looking at Yahoo's chart of the Dow from what looks like 1929 onwards (the axes aren't particularly well labelled), it seems that bear markets are rather rare things. There is a pronounced one in the mid-1970s, but otherwise, the graph shows either an upward trend or flat.
Since flat means no growth in value of investment (and since your book suggests that making money by beating the market is rather hard), does a flat market equal a bear market (since inflation is eating away at your money)?
And following from that, does that mean that if your purchases are not backed by debt, you can just ride out a bear market?
Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844