Here is the article.
That strategy can be described in three words: buy and hold.
Fact 1:
Stocks of large U.S. companies have reliably returned about 10% annualized over the past two centuries. They should do just as well for the next two.
Fact 2:
In the short term, the market can be risky—if we define risk as volatility, or the severity of the ups and downs. In the long term, the market is much, much less risky.
Fact 3:
Individual companies can vaporize (Enron and Lehman Brothers, to name a couple), but a diversified portfolio protects you from the risk that an individual company will implode and provides a smoother ride.
Fact 4:
Compounding is enormously powerful. Over long periods, small price gains and dividend payouts mount up (but note that the expenses charged by mutual funds, brokers and other advisers add up, too).
Statement No. 1
Any 30-year-old who can put away $30,000—not every year but just once—has an excellent chance of becoming a millionaire by age 70.
Psychological hurdles.
It is behavior that determines investment success or failure—not knowledge or skill or luck.
In urging a buy-and-hold strategy, I am not suggesting that you mindlessly keep companies that have gone sour. The reason to sell, however, is not that the price of a stock has declined but that the business has deteriorated and is unlikely to recover—a key new product has failed, a rival has started a price war, or the new CEO is clueless. If you have chosen stocks well, these events will be rare. And if you are wise, you will err on the side of keeping what you have. If you had done that five years ago, your portfolio would be up, oh, some 200%.
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