The classic and traditional investment strategy of "buy and hold"—invest in assets and then never sell them—is losing its relevance. Or at least it seems to be with baby boomers and seniors. This is especially true in the once-hallowed and honored area of equities (aka stocks).
For many decades it seemed that, regardless of the individual corporation, prices would always "go back up." For some time now, though, Wall Street pros have been eschewing the buy and hold approach. And finally, both baby boomers and their parents are throwing in the towel on waiting for their stocks and other investments to go back up. And a long wait it has been thus far—almost 12 years since 2000 and the heyday of the Y2K stock market and real-estate bubble.
A powerful financial pundit states that by being fully invested in the stock market on the best 100 days since the beginning of 2000, an investor would have earned 376.4 percent. Those are impressive returns, but here's the other side of the story: New data suggest that by avoiding the worst 100 days, an investor would have also not lost 376 percent. In other words, the best days and worst days are mirror images of each other. Consequently, being fully invested for nearly 12 years has yielded nil.
