Long time readers will recognize the headline as the title of the book by some of our favorite economists: Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton.
Here's CXO Advisory's "Triumph of the Optimists (Chapter-by-Chapter Review)" last seen in our "What if everything we’ve come to think of as American is predicated on a freak coincidence of economic history? And what if that coincidence has run its course?" along with my commentary from the cheap seats:
Re Triumph of the Optimists, the main point to take away is how different your portfolio returns look if you were invested in the Berlin market in late 1944, the Chinese market in 1949 or the U.S. market over the last 150 years. As The Economist pointed out the authors deliberately excluded the Warsaw and Moscow Exchanges "since they were closed down under communist rule. That led to returns best described as “steeply negative”. If these markets were taken into account, the historical equity premium would be even lower"
