I made a video about this a few weeks ago and I took a TON of flack. The fact of the matter is though, that buy and hold investing does not make money for ANYONE except the mutual fund industry. It never has, IT NEVER WILL. Yes if you look at the nice pretty chart that the Mutual Fund Industry spends nearly a half TRILLION dollars per year world wide to get you to buy into, then it looks like a very profitable way to go. However, if you look at the real picture, which is to say capital gains AFTER INFLATION, you then discover that buying and holding is as shitty of an investment tactic as has ever been discovered. In fact, buy and holders, after inflation, are about in the same place today as they found themselves in the mid 30's. Of course when I made my video a couple of weeks ago people thought that I might have some radiation sickness. Well, here is an article from none other then the NY Times itself which will tell you exactly the same thing I tried to say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/business/07charts.html?_r=2
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/business/07charts.html?_r=2
THANKS, BRANDON!