November 19, 2015
Whitepapers and Publications
Back in the Hunt
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For 15 years we have attributed the following quote to late economist Paul Samuelson, though, admittedly, we can’t find a trace of it now. We remember him saying near the height of the technology bubble of 1999–2000, when stock prices were at astronomical heights, something along the lines of, “Market timing is an investing sin, and for once I recommend that you sin a little.” He meant — if he ever actually said it — that things were so obviously wrong at that time that even a lifelong proselytizer of buy-and-hold would recommend some judicious selling. In attempting to confirm this quote, one of us checked in with Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle, who could not help us with attribution but admitted to lightening up on stocks himself somewhere near the high. (We can confirm that he did indeed make very prescient and public forecasts or lower than normal expected long-term stock returns at the time.)
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