There were terrible stretches in world history during that long period, and some calamitous stock returns. The volatility of the stock market is a key reason for holding high-quality bonds: Bonds can buffer the gut-wrenching shifts in stocks. Was Barack Obama responsible for the fabulous 16 percent annualized market returns during his eight years in office? Yet it is possible to forecast the long-term trend of the stock market with a fair amount of confidence, in the view of David G. Booth, a founder of Dimensional Fund Advisors. “We know that for the last 100 years, investors have had a reasonable return from the stock market of about 10 percent a year.

Source: International New York Times October 17, 2020 09:00 UTC