Common Stock’s Future

I find a major disconnect among investors about what they expect to earn from their securities portfolio over the next ten, twenty and more years, after tax and inflation.

Admittedly, that is a tough prediction because investors must take income taxes and inflation into account, along with projected securities’ yield and market returns. That isn’t simple.

In one survey, the net/net/net predicted return by a number of experts over the next fifty years, estimated returns ranged only between 2% and 3% annually.

That is unusual and shocking. Investors’ experience from the past would have had expectations to be close to about 6%.

In fact, many securities markets observers believe that potential, along with taxation and inflation bites, will impair future market returns. ( See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments.)