Has Kitces corresponded lately?
Michael sent me an e-mail a week ago or so that I have not yet had a chance to post. It’s possible that I will put that forward next week. It’s also possible that I might elect to hold off on it for at least one more week (there are a few others items that I am trying to fit in before they get too dated).
Rob

Did he reply?
Yes. I expect to post Bill’s response as Thursday’s blog entry.
Rob

Has Kitces corresponded lately?

Did he reply?

I’ve added Podcast #37 to the “RobCasts” section of the site. It’s called The Future of Investing (Part One).
I earlier released a series of four podcasts that explained why Passive Investing is the most emotional investing approach of all. This new series of four podcasts describes what we need to do to make the transition [...]

There is no one “method” that I recommend, JCL. I advocate Rational Investing, which is the opposite of Passive Investing. I say that we should buy stocks heavily when the long-term value proposition is strong and not so heavily when the long-term value proposition is poor. (Passive Investing posits that there is no need to take the long-term value proposition into account, that it is okay or even a good idea to stick to the same stock allocation regardless of whether valuations are high or low.)
You can check out The Stock-Return Predictor to assess the long-term value proposition of stocks at different valuation levels. The calculator shows that the long-term value proposition is very strong indeed when valuations are low. So, yes, as a general rule, the Rational Investor is going to go with a high stock allocation when prices are low. You of course need to take your personal circumstances into account and make whatever adjustments are needed as a result of doing so.
Rob

Rob Wrote:
My personal view is that short-term timing does not work but that long-term timing does work (long-term timing is a policy of lowering one’s stock allocation at times of extremely high prices with an understanding that benefits may not be seen for doing so for as long as 10 years
***
Does your method call for greatly increasing one’s stock allocation during low valuation periods?

William Bengen is a financial planner based in El Cajon, California. He is well known for his work as one of the early researchers using the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate (SWR) methodology for retirement-planning research. Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent to Bill on November 24, 2008:
Mr. Bengen:
My name is Rob [...]

Yeah, yeah.
Rob

I think you need to retitle all your podcasts as “the axe I have to grind against the boards that banned me.”