Safe Withdrawal Rate versus P/E10 Data

Research on Safe Withdrawal Rates

Moderator: hocus2004

hocus
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Post by hocus »

So, if i compliment JWR that means I agree with every single thing he said in his sometimes hocusly-leviathan posts?

The vindication of what I have been saying wasn't a parenthetical buried in a footnote to the post. The entire thrust of the post vindicated my claim.

If you are thanking JWR1945 for writing the post, that means that you saw some merit in it. If you saw some merit in it, you see some merit in my claim. If you see merit in my claim, then for heaven's sake say so when you see people jumping down my back for posting honest and informed insights on SWRs.

You are a leader at this board, Wanderer. If you say "thanks," others may follow your lead. You can make a difference.

Do you see any possible downside?

Are you really foolish enough to pin your retirement on these 2 independent data points? Yes? Then perhaps you still don't get how inconclusive that data is

I don't know how closely you have followed this, Wanderer. But the data showing that changes in valuation levels affect SWRs is absolutely overwhelming. Why do you think I have been so confidently asking people to do just what JWR had now done? I knew a long time ago what the data was going to show. I knew this in 1996.

There may be some who do not possess a clear understanding of exactly how a SWR is defined in the studies, or exactly what the data says, or whatever. If there are genuine points of confusion, I am happy to help out. That's what the board is for.

But if people are not familiar with what the data says, they should not be attacking other posters who are helping the community out by telling it what it says. I know what the data says because I have been following this stuff for years. For three years I never said a word over on the other board. That doesn't mean that I didn't follow the SWR threads. I know exactly how they defined the SWR concept, and I know preciselty the holes in the arguments that were made in those days. I didn't come to this on May 13, 2002. I had a huge head start on everyone else.

have you thanked me.... for posting tons of content on the board you abandoned at tmf?

I thanked you for the contributions you made to the Passion Saving board at the time you made them. I welcomed you warmly to the board and told people that I had learned more about FIRE from you than from any other poster at the REHP board. I said that you were my favorite poster of all time. What more could I say?

This talk of "hocus abandoned a board" is silly. I started a board, and it took off like a rocket. I had tons of other work that I needed to do, so I put up a post saying that I would be doing that work and that I wished the board well. I don't get paid for posting. I have to do some other things for my plan (which requires me to earn a small annual income) to work.

Were there no other posters who could have done the work needed to make that board thrive? Did you do it, Wanderer? Did PeteyPerson do i? Am I the only poster on Planet Earth who can bring a board to life?

If you want other boards to grow, go out and do something to make them grow.. I am all for it. No one has done more than me to make FIRE boards grow. I've done a lot to make this one grow, and I've been met with a lot of flak for going to the trouble. I keep trying and trying and trying, and the other side keeps fighting and fighting and fighting.

Anyone can start a board. People who want more boards should not turn to me to start them or to keep them going. If you want to see a job get done, do it yourself. As for me, I do my part, and then a whole bunch more, and then a whole bunch more on top of that.

I love this stuff, so that is not intended as a complaint. No one is making me do the work I do. But it is a fact that I do it. And it is a fact that no one else in the history of FIRE boards has done as much to move things in a postive direction.

and most importantly for making the case for letting some air into the re*p when you were MIA elsewhere

It is hard for me to believe that I am reading these words. After I built up the REHP board to become one of the five most successful boards in Motley Fool history, intercst lost interest in the subject matter and started flooding the board with political junk and driving all the best posters away. I got fed up with the desctructiion he was doing to a community-built board, and went on a posting hiatus. You then rose to become the finest poster in the community, and were widely recognized as such.

Then you made some sort of point that bothered intercst and he waged a smear campaign to drive you off the board. I was not on the board at the time, so I wasn;t able to help out. But I was shocked at the lack of community reaction when I found out about this. I concluded that the board was sick and that on-topic posting was the remedy. So I put up my first post on the SWR issue to generate some of that.

The entire SWR matter was brought forward as a response to what was done to you, Wanderer. I know you know this. I have said it publicly many times. Intercst had smeared many lesser posters before smearing you, but the fact that he would do it to you told me that the board was in deeper trouble than I had recongized.

Does the fact that I would take this battle on myself not tell you how much I appreciated your posts? I have learned more about FIRE from you than from any other poster (JWR1945 now comes awfully close). I don't thank you once for what you have taught me. I thank you a thousand times.

There is nothing you can say today that will change the fact that I l;earned enormous amounts from you in the past. That is done and written in the books. You are a giant in the FIRE community.Thank you!
hocus
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Post by hocus »

I have to chime in and agree that your tone has been quite unpleasant, hocus. This board is starting out poorly. A pity.

The board kick-off has been a thing of wonder, BenSolar. It couldn't possibly have gone any better. JWR1945 has brought our troubles to an end. He looked at the data and he determined the truth of things. That's what we are all supposed to be trying to do. This board has only been around a few days, and we already have posted to it several of the most important posts in the history of FIRE boards. A kick-off doesn't get any better than that.

I was right, JWR1945 says. Knowing that should bring our troubles to an end. JWR1945 has done his part. Now it's up to the rest of us to do ours. If someone has put forward a claim, and that claim has been subject to intense challenge, and the claim is vindicated, there are things that need to be done. They aren't big things, they are easy little things. People need to say "thanks, guy." That's pretty much it.

People can elect not to do it. That's the other way to go. I see no benefit to anyone in doing it that way. But it is a theoretical alternative.

I noticed that Wanderer and you had thanked JWR1945 and had not thanked me and I thought it exceedingly strange. And I said so. I think the board is struggling with something here and that getting these things out on the table helps the board work through them.

I'm not going to go up to my bedroom and cry into my pillow if you can't bring yourself to say "thank you," BenSolar Life will go on. But you know that you should say it, and I know that you know you should say it. Those two facts are going to affect the tone of coversations we have in the future.

I like you, I respect you, I gain from reading your posts. But when something like this happens, and people don't say the right things, it affects future tone. That's my experience anyhow. I think it is a bad thing that people on this board cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that I was right on this thing.

It doesn't mean that I don't like you. It means that I think you are making a mistake. I really do think that. You have allowed this personal stuff to influence your perception of how the board start-up phase went. We have done amazing work in a few days, but all you can see is the personal junk. That's the way it is for a lot of people.

Well, you could do something to remedy that little problem, BenSolar. I have done all that I can do. You have not. You could step up to the plate and just do it.

Or you can take it the other way.

What you decide has an effect on the future of the board. That's my big point. This is not a television show, where you change the channel if you don't like what's playing. This is a community of human beings. You influence the tone of discussions held here. You have a role to play in making this a better learning resource.

I don't think you have been doing so hot a job in that department lately.
peteyperson
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Post by peteyperson »

John,

It would seem you would sacrifice your cash to buy at fair rates. What happens when the market slides down and you need the cash? Surely you would only put money in the market at low valuations where it is less likely to drop further and the same situation occur and more likely that it will rise back to the market's intrinisc value and you can cash out having taken a nice ride up?

Otherwise you could end up buying in at 14.1 P/E and then it slides to 12 and you have to sell out at a loss to cover your cash requirements in a down market. The method also means you cannot relax and you need to watch the market. However, crashes happen fast enough that you likely won't be able to sell once you hear about it as the market will already be down markedly by then. Buying in a fair value then reduces your manouvering room and you may take heavy losses. This strikes me as greed rather than that a balance portfolio that is safely allocated for good and bad times. Buying in at low valuation carries less risks but a drop would leave all your stocks underwater and you with little cash to live off. You'll feel pretty silly then, trying to eek out that extra percentage point or two and sabataging your carefull planned safety in the process.

What am I missing here?

Petey
JWR1945 wrote:When stocks have normal valuations, I mentioned increasing the stock allocation to 80%. This reduces the cash buffer in favor of stocks because the risk / reward ratio is reasonable. From the second table, I find that the safe withdrawal rate is 5.6% in times with normal valuations with 80% stocks.
peteyperson
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Post by peteyperson »

Hocus,

I have read your opening response below.

Rather than hiding from the accusation you are positively embracing it saying your confidence is rising higher and higher. This "confidence" is being read by many as arrogance and in fact is arrogance. There are now several posters on the main FIRE board who are disgusted at your recent behaviour. They simply don't post here because being moderated by you is distasteful to them, especially in light of your recent behaviour.

You still seem to think that you are some kind of SWR God. It is laughable. I have no interest in who mentioned something first. As I mentioned before, this is not a race and there is no single man on the moon who will be remembered and the rest forgotten. Valuation has been discussed by any number of people, myself included. It is not a field pioneered by you, Rob.

Your arrogance is remarkable.

Petey
hocus wrote:There seems to be a sudden arrogance in both your posting style and words chosen, hocus. Shockingly so.

I have a great amount of confidence at this point in the idea that I put forward that changes in valuation levels affect SWRs. My confidence level has grown and grown as time has gone on. It has grown because there is so much data supporting the idea and there is none pointing the other way. My confidence is justified.by the realities.

I certainly don't see them as yours, hocus, either.

It's unlikely that we would be having this discussion had I not started the ball rolling. SWRs were discussed regularly for three years on the REHP board prior to my post and no one had ever argued for making an adjustment for changes in price levels.
hocus
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Post by hocus »

They simply don't post here because being moderated by you is distasteful to them.

Anyone interested in learning about the subject matter is welcome to post here.
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Post by wanderer »

hocus -

i have stood by you for i don't know how long. i was so vociferous in my defense of you, es had to warn me to back off. (sorry about that, es, i'm a hot blooded northern european;-)).

i know what i would thank you for. but i don't think it's what you think i'd thank you for.

please provide a specific list of no more than ten, one-line items that i should thank you for. those that i agree with i will readily thank you for. those that i don't i simply will exclude. (head... hurtz...)
regards,

wanderer

The field has eyes / the wood has ears / I will see / be silent and hear
hocus
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Post by hocus »

please provide a specific list of no more than ten, one-line items that i should thank you for.

There are not 10 things, Wanderer. It's one thing.

I have hung in there in the face of a lot of oppositon saying that changes in valuation levels affect SWRs. It's a big deal. Once we stop the word games, we can do all sorts of exciting things with this. We can talk about it constructively for a long time. We can help the board a lot and we can help people trying to achieve FIRE a lot.

We have gotten stuck in quicksand. Enormous amounts of energy have gone into battles over semantics. That stuff helps no one. It doesn't help anyone achieve FIRE. And it drives people away from the board. It's boring.

JWR1945 has offered us an opportunity. I think my case was proven a long time ago. But he has now added a significant dimension to the proof. He has put forward the numbers showing that what I said is so. Not just during the bubble period is it true that changes in valuation levels affect SWRs. It's always so. We don't have every detail pinned to the wall. But there is no doubt anymore that this is true. That part is over.

We can take the board in a constructive direction by acknowledging this. Then we could spend our time discusssing FIRE strategies, not word games. It's a win, win, win.

The main point here is not to thank me in order to make me feel good. The main point is to open up the board to discussion of a lot of exciting stuff. There are lots of things that can be done with this tool when the number is calculated properly. We haven't been able to talk about that stuff until now because the conversation is always sidetracked at the introductory stage. JWR1945 has offered us a way out of the woods.

The right way to do this is for those who expressed doubts to say "now I see it, now that it is all laid out so clear." That causes the fever to break. That allows us to move forward to the good stuff, the stuff that I believe everyone would prefer to be talking abouit.

It can never be disproven now that it has been proven. You can't put the genie back in the bottle once it is out. So the word games just don't serve a purpose anymore. They can't change anything.

I knew all along the potential of this tool and I stood in there a long time while people had doubts for the good of the community. Saying "thanks" now is an easy way of putting an end to it, it closes the book on the ugly stuff and allows us to move forward to all the good stuff on the other side.

That's the way I think we should go with this thing. I see all upside and no downside whatsoever.
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Post by wanderer »

The right way to do this is for those who expressed doubts to say "now I see it, now that it is all laid out so clear." That causes the fever to break. That allows us to move forward to the good stuff, the stuff that I believe everyone would prefer to be talking abouit.

If you could point me to where I expressed doubts about that thesis that would be most helpful. Since I have designed my portfolio ala raddr/bernstein (value, broad diversification - in fact, so nobody thinks either of them advised my somewhat concentrated portfolio, i went further and bet BIG in certain areas: directly held real estate, picking up a hammer and a nail gun and getting my passport and steamer trunk together and bundling the fam off to points unknown) and posted ad nauseum to that effect here and elsewhere, you can probably gather what side I came down on. i doubt youll find much.

<pause for research>

Found nothing? Ok.

What I like about jwr's analysis is that, I figure if we (wife and me) can position ourselves equity wise in holdings at the low end of the value spectrum, we could have a much larger SWR. but that is something i thought of (at least I don't recall reading that elsewhre). so please don't claim you thought of that. (appropriate tip of cap to raddr, bernstein, david dreman, web/ben graham, jeremy grantham, and others).

the SWR ratchet up is interesting - based on jwr's quantification (of course it is not all that surprising since it was the underpinning peter lynch leaned too heavily on). if, however, as i mentioned before, you conclude that a p/e of x guarantees you a take out rate much higher (in accord with the two independent data points jwr's work is based on), then i think you are taking a risk this particular ex-audit manager would counsel against. since i believe you refer to jwr's work as "proving" something, i'm concerned that this is precisely the case.

hocus, i do appreciate your pushing (shoving?) others to perform various analyses. i don't appreciate your attitude directed toward my good friends, raddr and bensolar. as providers of significant technical underpinnings of the material you likely will attempt to use in your profit making ventures, i believe you owe them a special debt. as a friend, i strongly urge you a) to make peace with them and b) get their feedback on your "understanding" of matters mathematical/financial.

hocus, are you reading the other boards? your behavior is generating precisely the outcome you (and i) found so deplorable at the re*p: the driving off of dissent and some of the most insightful posters. in fact, you are also driving me off. altho i am far from perfect (for example, i feel a bit bad for driving away one somewhat sensitive poster here), i'm fairly certain i've earned a little bit of slack. i strongly encourage you to refrain from further unproductive choices.

hocus, i am a big fan of yours and have stood by you longer than just about anyone here. still, i find this "i've done more than anyone"/martyr routine pretty tiresome. to be quite frank, it's divisive. at least here. and it's insulting. unfortunately, at a certain level i don't really care what you (or anyone else, for that matter) think. your most recent comments have put you at that level with me. i hope that changes and am open to future productive collaboration with you.

that's my final word on the current time sink you are pursuing.

so, the question is: did you really mean it when you said "let's appreciate each other" and stop the divisiveness? the next moves are yours.
regards,

wanderer

The field has eyes / the wood has ears / I will see / be silent and hear
hocus
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Post by hocus »

please don't claim you thought of that. (appropriate tip of cap to raddr, bernstein, david dreman, web/ben graham, jeremy grantham, and others).

I did not come up with the "Valuation Matters" concept. I have learned from others who did and I tip my hat to them.

I did not come up with the safe withdrawal rate (SWR) concept. I have learned from others who did and I tip my hat to them.

But I did come up with something of earth-shaking importance. I put forward a post that asked "What if we took the Valuation Matters concept and married it to the SWR concept?" That had never been suggested before, and posts that have been put forward to the two boards since have shown that that insight is going to produce the most powerful tool for FIRE investing that the world has ever seen.

This board has already played a role in development of the tool, and, if the board is smart, the board will play more of a role in the future. Why wouldn't it want to? But the board has become so caught up in the game of "let's destroy the person who brought this insight to us" that the board is durecting its energies to far less productive purposes.

Why is the board doing that? That is what we need to come to terms with. You have been a supporter of mine in the past, so it seems to me that understanding why you are doing this (to a far less extent than many others) would provide some clues. Something caused you to switch from "hocus supporter" to "poster who feels at least somewhat hostile to hocus." Knowing what that something is would help us all move to the next step, I believe.

It's not that I think valuation is important. It can't be that because you agree that valuation is important. So what is it? What makes you feel hostile?

The reason we need to know is not because it hurts my feelings that you are hostile to me. That's my personal problem. The problem for the board is that your (and other's) hostility towards me consumes vast amounts of board energy. This hostility is hurting you. If you figure out the source of the hostility, you may be able to put it behind you. I think you should try to make sense of it.

i think you are taking a risk this particular ex-audit manager would counsel against. since i believe you refer to jwr's work as "proving" something,

JWR1945's work proves that changes in valuation levels affect SWRs. That's a very different matter than the matter you are referring to in your comments here. How you use the insight is a different issue than whether the insight is valid. The insight is valid. That part of this is over. The next step is to discuss strategies for making use of the insight.

The circle we are caught in is that, when I put up a post aiming to get at the question of how we might make use of the insight, we go back to the game of "Let's Tear Down hocus." That games helps no one. It is a bore. The game of "Let's Learn How to Invest Better By Making Use of the hocus Insight" is a fun game. I'm the Cat in the Hat. I say, "let's have some fun that is funny!"

i do appreciate your pushing (shoving?) others to perform various analyses

i don't push or shove. I ask. I'm not shy about asking, but that's as far as it goes.

i don't appreciate your attitude directed toward my good friends, raddr and bensolar. as providers of significant technical underpinnings of the material you likely will attempt to use in your profit making ventures,

First, the money thing. I do expect to make money from this. I will be taking advantage of insights put forward by others on this board when I do so. These are facts.

I don't do it primarily for the money. That's also an established fact. If I did it primarily for the money, I wouldn't have left a job paying in the six figures for one that in three years has paid zilch. If I did it primarily for the money, there wouldn't be 2,000 posts out in the FIRE community with my name on them for which I have been paid not a dime.

When I earn money from this, the entire FIRE community benefits. I want to be able to do this for another 20 or 30 years. I can't do that unless I make a small amount of money from this. I need to keep that reality in mind when I make decisions as to how to allocate my time to various activities. I need to make money at this. It's not optional.

The suggestion in your comment above is that I have some sort of negative attitude toward raddr and BenSolar. When I put up my web site, there is going to be a page where I list "The 10 Smartest FIRE Advisors on Planet Earth." The names of both raddr and BenSolar will be on that list. I have a funny way of going about the business of expressing my "attitude" toward these individuals.

That said, both raddr and BenSolar have made big mistakes in the course of this thing. The idea that BenSolar was pushing for awhile, that we should put little "h's" and little "f's" in front of the capital letters "SWR" was a disaster. That lost us a lot of time. His intent was good. The initiative was a big mistake.

Raddr fumbled the ball last week when he said that I had taken the Bernstein quote (comparing the Gordon Equation to a law of nature, like gravity) out of context. He's read the book, so he should know better. Not only was the quote in context. Bernstein felt so strongly about the idea being expressed that he reiterated it later in the same chapter to be sure no one would miss the point. Raddr added to the board's confusion by putting foward the suggestion that I had taken that quote out of context. He hasn't yet offered me an apology.

The fact that raddr has not come forward with an apology tells you something. The fact that you haven't put a post on the board asking that he give one tells you something. In any other circumstances, everyone would instantly see that that is what is needed to clear the air. But this case is treated differently. Again, why?

It's that idea that the game we play here is "Let's Bash the Guy Who Brought Us the Insight" instead of "Let's Develop the Insight." That's what makes me different. I am the one who put up the May 13, 2002, post. No one else did that, and it makes me stand out.

The healthy way to deal with this is to accept that it makes me stand out in a positive way, not a negative way. That's why the "thank you" is so important to the board's future. When you say "thank you," what you are really doing is saying "why don't we stop playing that stupid boring game and start playing the exciting fun one?" That's really what I am asking for when I ask you to say "thank you." The normal procedure is not to spell out all the details the way I am doing in this post. The normal procedure is to say "thank you" and leave it at that.

your behavior is generating precisely the outcome you (and i) found so deplorable at the re*p: the driving off of dissent and some of the most insightful posters.

The threads are doing that, to be sure. It's not anything that I am doing that is doing that. Do you see any word games in my posts? Do you see any personal attacks?

I have started only one thread in this last chapter. The purpose of the post I put up was to let the board know that Easterling had agreed to speak here. That was my purpose in coming here. I do not have time for anything else at the moment. I said so.

There are board members here who saw me offering the news about Easterling as an opening to resume the game of "Let's Bash the Guy Who Brought Us the Insight" and went to it with great vigor. It's a small number that did this. But it is a larger number that sat on their hands while it played out. You shouldn't be sitting on your hands if you see the damage being done, Wanderer. You should be doing somthing about the situation.

i strongly encourage you to refrain from further unproductive choices.

There's nothing unproductive about sharing with the board community insights as to the realities of SWRs. It's the most important issue that has ever been discussed here.

it's insulting. unfortunately, at a certain level

What is the insult? You have offered insights, I have offered insights. In this case, it was me who offered the insight. Why make such a big deal of it? Why not just say "thank you" and put it behind you, for heaven's sake.

The discussions here are supposed to be about FIRE. This is not the "All hocus/All the TIme" board. It becomes that when you play it this way. It sometimes seems that there are days here when one-third of the threads have my name in the title. We need to give this sort of stuff up and talk about substance.

I am the most informed poster in the FIRE community on the subject of SWRs. This is fact. This is established in the record. I am not a numbers guy, to be sure, and we need numbers guys. And there is a whole bunch that I do not know about SWRs, so there are lots of opportunities for lots of other people to be coming forward with insights. This matter is big. There are lots of ways to get involved in a constructive way.

But take a look at the comments you see on the board. You see comments suggesting that I know less about SWRs than a good number of others. Can that be so? What do you think the chances are that I would have been the one putting forward this magical insight if I in fact knew less. It's a far-fetched possibility.

I was able to develop the insight because I know more. I was able to defend it for 14 months because I know more. I had complete confidence that the data would vindicate me because I know more.

I shouldn't have to be the one to say these things. The standard procedure is for others to say them, and then I say "that's too kind, I'm just doing the best I can like everyone else." That's the way we should be playing this thing.

But when people play the "Let's Bash the Guy Who Brought Us the Insight" game, it becomes impossible. The insight is of great value. The insight is gold.. When you bash the guy who brought forward the insight, you do damage to our ability to develop the insight. I work for the FIRE community, and the community needs that insight developed. So I have to defend it when it is under attack.

If defending the insight means saying "I am the most informed poster in the FIRE community on the subject of SWRs," then that is what I am going to do. Someone must say this to stop these attacks, and open up some space for us to develop the insight. Do you see anyone else rushing for the microphone? So long as there is no one else rushing for the microphone, it is left to me.

You say "thank you" and it might change. We might be able to pursue this according to standard procedure if you and a few others could bring yourselves to taking that step. I say, "go for it!"

the question is: did you really mean it when you said "let's appreciate each other" and stop the divisiveness?


Of course I meant it.

the next moves are yours

My move was to request a "thank you" from you. It doesn't need to happen today. I do not expect to be posting here for a good amount of time (with the exception of the day of the Easterling event, and perhaps a post now and then that I might put to the SWR board just to show that the board is still an ongoing proposition). I suggest that you think this stuff over during the course of the next six months, and see if any of it comes to make a little bit of sense to you.

If the "thank you" comes six months from now, that's fine with me. If it never comes at all, I still can say that I gained a great deal from my dealings with you. I learned more about FIRE from you than anyone I can name (except Dominguez). So there are never going to be any hard feelings on my end. The reason that I aimed the "thank you" request to you is that I know you care a great deal about the future of this board, and I think you could do a great deal of good for this board by putting forward a "thank you."

It's a small amount of effort that I believe could do a very large amount of good. This is a game with high potential on both the upside and the downside. You are an up guy by nature, Wanderer. So take us up.
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BenSolar
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Post by BenSolar »

hocus wrote:please don't claim you thought of that. (appropriate tip of cap to raddr, bernstein, david dreman, web/ben graham, jeremy grantham, and others).

I did not come up with the "Valuation Matters" concept. I have learned from others who did and I tip my hat to them.

I did not come up with the safe withdrawal rate (SWR) concept. I have learned from others who did and I tip my hat to them.

But I did come up with something of earth-shaking importance. I put forward a post that asked "What if we took the Valuation Matters concept and married it to the SWR concept?" But I did come up with something of earth-shaking importance. I put forward a post that asked "What if we took the Valuation Matters concept and married it to the SWR concept?" That had never been suggested before
Bernstein explicitly connected the two in 4 Pillars, published in 2002 and almost certainly written in 2001. You claim to have posted something explicit prior to that?
That said, both raddr and BenSolar have made big mistakes in the course of this thing. The idea that <b<BenSolar was pushing for awhile, that we should put little "h's" and little "f's" in front of the capital letters "SWR" was a disaster. That lost us a lot of time. His intent was good. The initiative was a big mistake.
What-everrrr ;) I tried to clarify an area where minds were not meeting. People couldn't agree on terms, so it was unsuccesful. 'Big mistake' LOL At least I was attempting to bridge the gap. Unlike some people. ;) I still believe that the term hSWR for 1929 is an excellent shorthand to refer to the whole ball of wax that 1929 and and the years that followed presented us.
JWR1945 has offered us an opportunity. I think my case was proven a long time ago. But he has now added a significant dimension to the proof. He has put forward the numbers showing that what I said is so.
While JWR's recent posts have been nice pieces, they do not break particularily new ground. They eliminate the years prior to 1920 and find the valuation-SWR fits is a little better (maybe, I would have to see better analysis to be sure). There has been no one on these boards who disputes the valuation-SWR relationship. Why the ruckus? It is no more 'proof' than the graph that intercst put up ages ago.

Previously, I wrote have to chime in and agree that your tone has been quite unpleasant, hocus. This board is starting out poorly. A pity.

You responded to my comment:
The board kick-off has been a thing of wonder, BenSolar. It couldn't possibly have gone any better. JWR1945 has brought our troubles to an end. He looked at the data and he determined the truth of things.
As I noted above, JWR's post is hardly groundbreaking and didn't tell me anything new except that the valuation - SWR fit may be a bit better post 1920. I was certainly convinced far before that, as was most everyone on this site if the poll I put up months ago on the subject can be believed. The stuff that I referred to will likely doom this board to being a JWR - hocus love fest unless things change significantly. I certainly won't be participating further unless things change.
I was right, JWR1945 says. Knowing that should bring our troubles to an end. JWR1945 has done his part. Now it's up to the rest of us to do ours. If someone has put forward a claim, and that claim has been subject to intense challenge, and the claim is vindicated, there are things that need to be done. They aren't big things, they are easy little things. People need to say "thanks, guy." That's pretty much it.
I dispute that you were the first to note the SWR valuation connection, and unless you can produce a post with a 2001 date where you advance the notion, I consider the Berstein quotes from 4 Pillars, that you constantly throw around, to be proof that you were not first. I will note that you were the first that I was aware of to advance the idea on the TMF REHP board. It was one idea of many that you pushed as affecting the SWR (others included a person's amount of wealth, etc ..) . After participating in the debate, doing extensive reading on the subject, and doing my own research using raw data, I agreed with the valuation part, and disagreed with others. I have acknowledged previously that your pushing the debate is what introduced me to the valuation - SWR connection. I think I even explicitly thanked you for that introduction on the TMF boards. It won't hurt me to thank you again, so 'thank you'.

On the other hand I will say that your stubbornness and your opaque ways of expressing yourself have contributed to me wasting many many hours of time in circular debates with you and with others. Can I have that time back? I regret that wasted time, and I lay a large helping of blame at your door. You get the blame for failing to help produce a meeting of the minds, and instead obstinately defending your points of view and your definitions of words (even if they contradict ordinary usage). I will also say that the attitude and ego you've displayed recently is extraordinarily unpleasant to read and interact with.
You influence the tone of discussions held here. You have a role to play in making this a better learning resource.
It's your board hocus, you set the tone. I'm done trying to improve it.

Have fun,
Ben
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Post by BenSolar »

I wrote:I will note that you were the first that I was aware of to advance the idea on the TMF REHP board.
I want to clarify that I wasn't an REHP regular much before the 'Great Debate' broke out. I expect that others on that board made the same argument that the abberant valuations of 2000 put the SWR established by the REHP style studies at risk before hocus did.

Maybe I'll browse the archives. Probably not.
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Post by hocus »

I dispute that you were the first to note the SWR valuation connection, and unless you can produce a post with a 2001 date where you advance the notion, I consider the Berstein quotes from 4 Pillars, that you constantly throw around, to be proof that you were not first.

You placed a good number of important questions on the table with this post, BenSolar, too many for me to address in a single reply. For now, I will post a link in response to the comment above. I'll follow up with some other links to earlier posts in subsequent posts to this thread. I also will address some of the other questions raised in your post in subsequent posts to this thread.

Here's a link an REHP board from September 1991. It's a post by me making an explicit case that the conventional SWR methodology does not do the job in many circumstances.

http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=15685992

Here's the complete text of the post from 1991. The bolds were not in the original version. I'm adding them here to draw the reader's eyes to the statements that seem most significant looking at this from the perspective of August 2003.

Text of Septemebr 1991 Post:
Numbers are numbers. Either a 4% withdrawal rate, historically, is 100% safe for 40 years or it isn't.

Pablum:

Thank you stating the opposing point of view. I sincerely appreciate any one going to the trouble of forcing me to think harder about this stuff.

The particular statement quoted above sums up our difference of opinion as clearly as it can be expressed. I do not believe that numbers are ever just numbers. Numbers are abstracts generated for the purpose of being applied in real life circumstances. Apply a perfectly valid number in an invalid circumstance, and you generate an invalid result.

I believe that the numbers produced by the safe withdrawal rate study are valid in that they are computed correctly and in that they serve an important informational purpose. However, I believe that they are being applied by some on the board for purposes not supported by the data from which these numbers were generated.
There are several problems with using historical data to make definitive pronouncements about what is going to happen in the future. I'll focus on one here--the disparity between the Price/Earnings average for stocks during the time-periods from which the data in the study were generated, and the PE average applicable today, the period in which some people are putting these numbers to use in making investment allocation decisions.
There have been few years (if any) in stock market history at which the average Price/Earnings ratio was as high as it is today; if there were a few equivalent years, they were aberrations. Clearly, stocks were available at far lower prices (compared to the earnings they generated) in most of the years from which data was accumulated.
It's worth noting in this respect that the Wall Street Journal ran an article a week or two ago showing that the real PE ratio today is much higher than the number given in most reports because most reports use pro forma earnings (adopted by companies as a means of making their earnings look better). To apply the data generated by the safe-withdrawal study to today's circumstances, you need to adjust in some way for the fact that earnings are computed differently today, and for the fact that the survey data contains few or no years in which the average Price/Earnings ratio was equivalent to that which applies today.

If you don't do that, you are comparing apples to oranges. What the safe withdrawal rate really shows is that, if you buy stocks at prices that were available to your father and grandfather, you can expect a minimum long-term return of 4 percent. But you run into a problem if you cannot find anyone willing to sell you a stock at the prices for which they were available to your father and grandfather.

The historical data really tells us nothing definitive about what sort of return rate is safe given the Price/Earnings ratios that prevail today. This is one sense in which it ireally is true that "this time it's different!"

Some conclude from these considerations not to purchase stocks at all. I see that as going as far in the Bear direction as it would be to go in the Bull direction to conclude definitively that stocks will provide the same returns in the future as they did in the past. The problem with rejecting historical data altogether is that, when you do that, you leave yourself with not much to go on in making investment decisions.
But if you incorporate your personal circumstances into the equation along with the historical data, you can make some reasonable decisions. For example, if you are not planning on retiring for 20 years or so, you can invest in stocks with more confidence than if your planned early retirement date is coming up soon. If the retirement date is a long ways out, it is possible that stock prices could fall within the next five years to Price/Earnings ratios within the historical norms, causing you to lose 50 percent or so of your investment, and then climb back in the 15 years following to still give you a 20-year return of 4 percent or close to it.

The key question is: Are your personal circumstances such that you will not flinch at a 50 percent drop in prices that pulls the value of your portflio down to a level where it is not enough for you to retire and leaves it there for 10 or 15 years? It's rare for someone who has an intense need for all the assets in his or her retirement portfolio not to lighten up on stocks a little in those circumstances; perhaps one in five investors have the fortitude it takes to pull this off. Certainly no believer in historical data could argue that most investors putting money into stocks today are likely to do this as they are tested over the course of the next 40 years.
On the other hand, someone with different circumstances (either a longer time to go to retirement or a big cushion of extra money to cushion the blow) might well stick with stocks through thick and then (and might well ultimately get that 4 percent return on the other side of a very scary ride through the darkness).

My fundamental objection to the historical data is its artificiality. A valid scientific study would look not to hypothetical stock returns of of people who are assumed to have bought on x data and sold on y date. The correct way of doing this would be to look at real living human-being investors. Do those sorts of investors obtain a long-term 4 percent real return or not? I would love to know the answer to this question, but I have never seen a study that addresses the point.

For all we know, it could be that, of every 100 investors who invested in stocks in 1930, 80 received returns less than what could have been received in a Treasury bond. I'm not saying that is true, and I don't think that it is. I'm saying that a finding that that was the case would not necessarily be inconsistent with the data in the historical returns surveys. All of these studies, to my knowledge, are based on hypotehtical investors, not real ones. They don't take account of the fact that far more people buy stocks when theyir prices are high than do when their prices are low. Yet this factor is critical in determing a real-life safe-withdrawal rate!
What we do know--from historical surveys--is that real investors do not behave in a manner in any way similar to the behavior ascribed to the hypothetical investors examined by the safe-return study. It would be helpful to have a study that shows the long-term return you get if you have a tendency to move a bit more into the market when prices are high and a bit out of of it when prices are low. My guess is that that study would show a safe-withdrawal rate lower than 4 percent.

I know that there are some on the board who wll insist that they will not behave the way that the vast majority of all investors who came before them have. Some who make this claim are probably even right about that. But how do you know with certainty in advance whether you are one of the 80 percent or one of the 20 percent? There's a lot riding on being right about that because the entire logic of the safe withdrawal rate fails if you behave the way that most investors do (that is, reduce your stock holdings when it appears that your portfolio may be wiped out).

My resolution to this dilemma is neither to ignore the limitations of the data nor to forsake investing in stocks. My resolution is to determine whether I am in the sort of circumstances that would put me in that small group of investors with the fortitude to stick with stocks when their prices fall so far that my financial security appears to be at risk. My belief is that, if stocks make up a relatively small portion of my portfolio, or if I have saved far more than the minimum needed for a long-term retirement under the 4 percent withdrawal assumption, then I am far more likely to stick with stocks through any dark times in the future than I am if that is not the case.
That's why I say that numbers are not just numbers. A 4 percent withdrawal assumption may well work for you if you are in the sort of circumstance that justifies confidence that your stock behavior will be different than most investors who came before you. But if your need to retain most of your retirement portfolio is roughly similar to that of the average person investing for retirement, my advice is to think twice before applying the safe withdrawal rate finding to your particular circumstances. The numbers don't support what you are trying to do.

It is possible, of course, that all investors will get a 4 percent long-term return or even higher. I'm not making predictions about what will happen in the market in the years ahead. What I am saying is that the data from which the withdrawal rates were generated do not provide anything close to 100 percent certainty that the average investor will get this sort of long-term return. Robots, maybe; they are capable of behaving in the ways attributed to hypothetical investors in these studies. Real investors? No one has done a study that applies to them yet (so far as I know).
If anything, the fact that the return obtained from looking at hypthetical investors is 4 percent, combined with the fact that most investors behave in a manner that causes returns lower than what they would have obtained were they hypthetical investors, suggests that the safe withdrawal rate for the average real investor is some unknown number lower than 4 percent.
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Post by BenSolar »

hocus wrote:Here's a link an REHP board from September 1991. It's a post by me making an explicit case that the conventional SWR methodology does not do the job in many circumstances.

http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=15685992
Your post was September 2001, not 1991.

Also, interesting to note that the original post in that thread was based on a William Berstein 'Efficient Frontier' article. In that article he uses Monte Carlo with less than historical return assumptions to demonstrate that 4% may not be 100% safe.
Assume that you have a $1,000,000 nest egg with an expected 4.5% real return and a 10% standard deviation - about what a reasonable person can expect from a 60/40 globally-diversified stock/bond mix. Here are the 40-year success probabilities for the following before-tax monthly withdrawals:
Monthly Withdrawal Rate 40-Year - Success Probability

$5,000 - 30%

$4,500 - 46%

$4,000 - 63%

$3,500 - 78%

$3,000 - 90%

$2,500 - 97%

$2,000 - 99.5%
You can be sure that the reduced real return is a direct result of incorporating valuation and the Gordon Equation.

Further support, and pushing Bernstein's contributions back to the first quarter of 2001 is the 2cnd article in the 'Retirement Calculator from Hell' series.
The first table below shows the results for monthly returns and withdrawals for an "old-paradigm" returns scenario, with high (7%) real stock returns, low (2.5%) real bond returns. ...

I also examined a "new-paradigm" returns scenario with 4.5%/3.5% stock/bond returns in the second table. ...

Obviously, the new paradigm with its low equity risk premium is less forgiving than the old paradigm.
The bolding is mine for emphasis. Looks like the hurdle for you to prove you are first has moved to about 1/1/01. If not late 2000. I suspect it will be easy to trace Bernstein's contributions back further ...
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Post by wanderer »

good one, bensolar. i saw that too.

how did hocus think he'd "get away" with that 'complete text' reference? given that only a few of us can check him on it and that jwr did not correct him promptly, i'm becoming a tad concerned about the "big lie" cutting both ways. i'm sure i'm in for some "blunt words" now. ;-)

i would still have to ask hocus: why are you behaving like this? How does it help "your" case?
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Post by hocus »

Looks like the hurdle for you to prove you are first has moved to about 1/1/01. If not late 2000. I suspect it will be easy to trace Bernstein's contributions back further .

I have links at which I raised the basic point (in less explicit form) going back to Janaury 2000.

At no time do I have any beef with Bernstein. Not in 2000, not in 2001, not in 2002, and not in 2003..I consider Bernstein a hero on the matter. If others had taken what Bernstein says about SWRs in "The Four Pillars of Investing" seriously when I put up the "What Bernstein Says" post, we would have moved this discussion into a far more constructive direction in the summer of 2002. it is not Bernstein that is causing the problem. It is people who are not taking what Bernstein said seriouslty who are causing the problem.

Bernstein does not post on the Motley Fool's REHP board. That board (and, in more recent times, NFB's FIRE board) is where the community of aspiring early retirees meets to learn how to achieve financial independence early in life. The advice that that board has been receiving on how to invest for early retirement from its founding in May 1999 right down to the present day is extremely bad advice. It is dangerous advice that has caused the loss of millions of dollars of wealth accumulated in earlier times by aspiring early retirees. The material that I write is written to benefit the FIRE community, and that is what I have done in this matter by posting the truth about SWRs, first at that board and now at this one.

Prior to May 13, 2002, there was a post now and then that noted that there were other approaches to SWR analysis that provided different numbers. For the most part, the alternate methodologies were spoken of in a disparaging ways. I am not aware of any post in which it was argued that the conventional methodology was flat-out invalid. My impression is that even Bernstein had not made that claim at earlier times, and my impression is that even Bernstein has not made that claim even today.

I am making that claim, BenSolar. There was a poll that ataloss put up at this board not too long ago where the question was whether the conventional methodology is invalid. I said yes, and there were no other posters voting for that positon. How can you possibly maintain that I am not the leader on that position? Not one other poster has said it even after a year of debate in which I have answered thousands of questions about the matter. I did say it, and I said it clearly, and all the data that has been put forward in the course of The Great Debate lends support to the claim.

I believe that the logical implication of some of Bernstein's statements is that the conventional methodology is invalid. But he has not stated this in direct terms. So far as I know I am the only one who has done so, and it is now 14 months after May 13, 2002. I was first with the invalidty claim, and that is the claim of greatest important in this matter.

It takes a leader to put forward that sort of claim when no one else is doing so, BenSolar. Why do you think that I am the one at which the heavy guns are aimed? It is because I am always a few months ahead of anyone else in the FIRE community on this matter. I am saying things that others are not ready to say yet, and I generate heat for myself as a result. So be it. Someone has to be the first to say these things. I would be happy to see others step forward in a leadership role, but I can't say that I have seen a lot of that happening during the course of the 14 months (there have been a few exceptions).

There are consequences that follow from the failure of others to say that the conventional methodology is invalid. The consequence that causes me the most concern is that there are going to be more busted retirements than would otherwise be the case. I read these boards as well as write for them, and there are many posts that show that many community members to this day have little understanding of the depth of the flaws in the conventional methodology. People are making investment decisions today based on a rough understanding of what those studies say, and those studies say some things that have no foundation whatsoever in the historical data.

I hope to continue to stay ahead of the curve on this matter, BenSolar. I write posts on this issue on an almost daily basis that I do not post because in my judgment the board community is not ready to address the issues raised in them. I have over 100 such posts in a file I keep, and I expect to put them forward at some later appropriate time.. In the meantime, I learn more about SWRs from the process of writing them. I learn something new almost every day, certainly every week.

I have been learning new things about the realities of SWRs since 1995/1996, the time-period when I was doing my initial study of the subject. I have continued learning in the eight years since, and I am learning more now than ever before. Can you say the same? Can the people on this board who have nothing better to do with their posting energies than put up word-game posts and ridicule posts say the same?

I think not. I think you do service for the board by learning prior to posting as well as as a result of posting. That's the way I have always played it. I am not the sort of poster who puts forward a claim that a particular methodology is invalid without giving the matter serious thought for months before doing so. I know what I am talking about re this matter, and my expectation is that, just as I have been vindicated in the claims that I put forward on May 13, 2002, I will be vindicated at some later date on the claim that I put forward in explicit terms only more recently, that the conventional methodology is so deeply flawed as to be flat-out invalid.

If you want to help me make the case, I think you can do a lot of good for the FIRE community by doing so. If not, I understand. But there is nothing you can do to change the fact that I was the first in thhe FIRE community to post that the conventional methodology generates dangerously false results and that I was the first to post that the methodology is so flawed as to be fairly termed invalid.

I'm proud of those two claims. I believe that those two claims are the two greatest give-backs that I have ever provided to the posting communities that I take from when I read the posts put up by other posters. There is something that makes you extremely reluctant to give me credit for those claims. But it is in the record that I made them, that I made them first, and that I stood by them in the face of tremendous oppostion.

That's the way it is, BenSolar. When I take this to a larger audience, I will make my case that I was first in putting forward these claims by pointing to the words in the Post Archives, both the words put forward by me and the words put forward by my critics. If you think that the typical conclusion will be that I said nothing different from things that had been said many times before, then you and me just disagree. I think I said something very different from what had ever been said before, and I think I said something of great importance to the community we are all supposed to be trying to serve. My case will stand or fall on what is in the Post Archives, and I think that is exactly as it should be.
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Post by hocus »

why are you behaving like this? How does it help "your" case?

I have addressed this question in general terms in earlier posts. I don't see that any benefit is served by repeating myself on it.

If you have a specific question here that you would like an answer to, I will do my best. But the questions above are general in nature, and I have already addressed these questions in general terms. So for now I will take a pass.
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Post by wanderer »

My case will stand or fall on what is in the Post Archives, and I think that is exactly as it should be.

:lol: well, it certainly "fell" in the cropped thread you offered as evidence to support this outrageous statement:

But I did come up with something of earth-shaking importance. I put forward a post that asked "What if we took the Valuation Matters concept and married it to the SWR concept?" That had never been suggested before, and posts that have been put forward to the two boards since have shown that that insight is going to produce the most powerful tool for FIRE investing that the world has ever seen.

mensrea at tmf put up a post where bernstein didn't ask 'what if' - bernstein outright calculated it. i wouldn't fall too much in love with those post archives. they're not helping your case.
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Post by hocus »

mensrea at tmf put up a post where bernstein didn't ask 'what if' - bernstein outright calculated it. i wouldn't fall too much in love with those post archives. they're not helping your case.

As I understand things, the number that Bernstein was putting forward was a number generated by a study using a Monte Carlo-based methodology. Is that right?

The "conventional methodology" that we have been referring to through the course of The Great Debate does not employ a Monte Carlo analysis. The intercst study does not employ a Monte Carlo analysis.

It sounds to me as if Bernstein was saying that you come up with a different number if you use a different methodology. He's not the only one who ever said that. There are a number of posts on the board that mentioned the Monte Carlo alternative from time to time.

I was (and am) saying something different. I was saying that the conventional methodology, the historical sequence method, generates false results unless an adjustment is made for changes in valuation. I am now saying in explcit terms that the conventional methodology is outright invalid.

Bernstein is saying that there is another way to do it, and here is the number you get if you do it that way. I am saying that the conventional methodology is a bad way to do it, so bad that it is an analytically invalid way.

Bernstein was not saying the same thing then as what as I was saying then, and he is not saying the same thing now as I am saying now. Bernstein's views are consistent with my views, in my opinion. But I do not believe that Bernstein said prior to May 2002 that the conventional methodology always generates false results, and I don't believe that even now he is saying that the conventional methodology is invalid.

Bernstein and I are saying similar things. We are not saying exactly the same thing.

Assume for a moment that everthing I have said Bernstein said months or years earlier. If that were so, then What the heck has all the noise been about? If Bernstein said it all before, why wasn't the reaction to my SWR claims a bored shrug of the shoulders and an observation that I was a little late to the party?

The reaction to my claims tells the story. The reation tells you that I was (and am) saying something new. I am playing a leadership role on this matter.
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Post by FMO »

The reaction to my claims tells the story. The reation tells you that I was (and am) saying something new. I am playing a leadership role on this matter.
Leadership is a relationship between the leader and his or her followers. Followers are most crucial to any leadership event. If followers won't follow, it doesn't matter how gifted or competent leaders are. There is no leadership without followers. You can shout from the rooftops, "I'm a leader, I'm a leader!" But if you turn around and look behind you, and no one is following, guess what? You're not a leader.
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Post by hocus »

There is no leadership without followers.

I understand, FMO.

But it's a little early in the game to be making assessments of whether I will gain followers or not, don't you think? JWR1945 only put up the post vindicating my claims within the past two weeks or so. This board was created only a few days before that.

I haven't yet put up my web site. I haven't yet held special event discussions with people like Easterling and Scott Burns and Bernstein and Gummy. I haven't yet given any speeches or appeared on any radio interview programs or written any magazine articles.

If after all that stuff, there is a poll taken that shows that mine is the only vote for "invalidity," then I would agree with you that one cannot claim to be a leader if one does not have any followers. But I haven't even brought the case forward into the public arena yet.

I think that we should wait until my claim is put on trial before rendering any final verdict on it.

There was a time when people criticized Thomas Jefferson, and yet he was a leader. There was a day when people criticized MArtin Luther King, and yet he was a leader. There was a day when people criticized Lincoln, and he was a leader.

I am not putting myself in that class. But I think that it is fair to say that, to be a leader, you sometimes have to stick your neck out a bit and take on some heat for saying things that not everyone agrees with. That's what I've done here. I studied the data, I learned some trhings that others did not know, and I took a lot of heat for telling the community what the data really says.

So far I have been vindicated in my claims. I think that will continue to be the case in the months and years ahead. But none of us will know for sure until we watch the thing play out.

I think we all need to just be patient, let the thing play out as it will, and let the data take us where the data wants to take us. We need to try to stop aiming to force things to happen one way or the other on our own particular time schedules. It will all become clear in the end. We all need to calm down about it. It's only a number.
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