John Rekenthaler, prolific investing writer and vice president, research, for Morningstar, has retired but will contribute occasional columns to the research firm's website.
Rekenthaler retired Nov. 15, shortly after posting a farewell column in which he paid tribute to "the miracle of U.S. equities."
"It was only as an adult that I learned that the greatest benefit of stocks came not when they were shuffled but instead merely from being held," Rekenthaler wrote.
The stock market succeeds because companies generate profits, which increase more than they fall over time, the market researcher noted. Despite naysayers who have expressed worry about the market over the decades, equities have prospered, he said.
Twenty-five years after joining Morningstar, Rakenthaler finally purchased Berkshire Hathaway shares in 2013.
"Too late? Not at all," he said. "The company was worth $150 billion at the time of my purchase. It now holds more than twice that amount in cash alone. Its overall value is a cool $1 trillion."
Rekenthaler said that he doesn't expect equities to perform so spectacularly over the next 37 years and that their price-to-earnings ratio is highly unlikely to double again. He added, however, that in the long run, U.S. business owners have grown their wealth faster than business workers have.
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