The Best-Performing Asset Classes
If you’re like me, you’re wondering what the best investments are.
It’s easy to find a lot of opinion, but not a whole lot of hard facts.
Articles abound on websites like Forbes, CNBC, and even Morningstar—but they ended up confusing me. They compare only a couple asset classes, and they frequently refer to different timeframes. For example, they look at the past 10 years for the S&P 500, the past 7 years for value stocks, and the past 13 years for growth stocks.
How am I supposed to make sense of that gibberish? I’m not looking for a load of blather; I want facts! Comparable, unbiased, non-cherry-picked facts. Is that really so hard?
Apparently, it is!...
I’ve had to do a lot of research to find some reliable numbers that can be compared. I got a great start with Paul Merriman’s excellent website, especially this set of charts [PDF].
While Merriman’s data was very helpful, I wanted data on more asset classes than the ones provided on that set of charts. I want all the asset classes!
How else are you supposed to make an informed decision?...