No. of Recommendations: 6
my question is how valuable is a 10 year forecast for an individual investor.
An absolutely fair question. The truth is, if I'd paid attention to such things before now I'd be a lot poorer than I am. But my investing experience has been dominated by mechanical, trend-following strategies in tax advantaged accounts, plus an LTBH cash account in which I have not sold anything since 2009.
I am now of an age where 10 years is a long time. My financial skills need to be tilted a bit more toward risk management. This has been brought home to me by the scale of financial and political risk now playing itself out on a daily basis. Back in February I made my first non-mechanical investment decision since the GFC, when I sold everything in my tax-deferred accounts on the news that President Trump intended to build hotels in Gaza; and specifically when his aides tried to walk back the idea with the usual "He's not serious" story, and he replied by insisting "Oh yes I am." I got back in immediately when the TACO phenomenon appeared, but I know enough about investing to realize that good luck can be a bad sign -- in the same way that narrowly avoiding a car accident should make you less, rather than more confident about your driving skills.
A month later I subscribed to Allocate Smartly because it relies on the mechanical/back-tested investing discipline that I cannot do without at this point, using models that include non-equity assets. I have learned a lot, and if the rest of my life turns out to be a secular bear market, I think I will manage well enough.
Given all this, Allocate Smartly's composite 10-year prediction provides some ballast for what is, on my part, a subjective judgment that I need to become more cautious.
My $.02.
Baltassar
