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Re:Puerto Rico files for biggest ever U.S. local government ... by EternalData on Thursday May 04, 2017 @01:41AM (#14262700)
You're overfitting. This is exactly the problem I'm describing. Case in point, you've omitted 2000-2010.

Real (CPI as inflation) averaged annualized return on the DJIA 2000-2010: -2.219%

This is with relatively mild inflation.

Of course, 1960-2000 looks better when you literally put in the apex of the software bubble when P/E ratios shot skywards...part of which corrected over the decade following.

Expecting a 8% nominal or real return is simply nuts in my opinion because you are staking yourself on a really small sample size with crazy inflation to boot. Nominal or real is a nuanced distinction to what is plainly just bad overfit thinking. The introduction of just one decade with low inflation and bad returns can wreck you -- case in point: Dallas Firefighters/Puerto Rico ($43bn + of unfunded pension obligations)/Detroit etc. etc. etc.

Re:Puerto Rico files for biggest ever U.S. local government ... by EternalData on Thursday May 04, 2017 @01:45AM (#14262711)
Also, to add another wrinkle to this discussion, most pension funds won't weight themselves 100% in stocks (corresponding positions in cash/bonds average much lower real or nominal return), and most pay significant management/consulting fees on top...
Re:Puerto Rico files for biggest ever U.S. local government ... by vkou on Thursday May 04, 2017 @02:30AM (#14262922)
Were pension fund managers in 2010 predicting 8% growth? I have my doubts about that.