So, from valuation levels similar to those of early 2003, the stock
market has sometimes done very well in the ensuing 10 years, some-
times poorly, and muddled along the rest of the time. I think Graham,
ever the conservative, would split the difference between the lowest
and highest past returns and project that over the next decade stocks
will earn roughly 6% annually, or 4% after inflation. (Interestingly, that
projection matches the estimate we got earlier when we added
together real growth, inflationary growth, and speculative growth.)
Compared to the 1990s, 6% is chicken feed. But it’s a whisker better
than the gains that bonds are likely to produce—and reason enough for
most investors to hang on to stocks as part of a diversified portfolio.
But there is a second lesson in Graham’s approach. The only thing
you can be confident of while forecasting future stock returns is that
you will probably turn out to be wrong. The only indisputable truth that
the past teaches us is that the future will always surprise us—always!
And the corollary to that law of financial history is that the markets will
most brutally surprise the very people who are most certain that their
views about the future are right. Staying humble about your forecast-
ing powers, as Graham did, will keep you from risking too much on a
view of the future that may well turn out to be wrong.
So, by all means, you should lower your expectations—but take care
not to depress your spirit. For the intelligent investor, hope always
springs eternal, because it should.In the financial markets, the worse
the future looks, the better it usually turns out to be. A cynic once told
G. K. Chesterton, the British novelist and essayist, “Blessed is he who
expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.” Chesterton’s
rejoinder? “Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall enjoy
everything.”
Commentary on Chapter 3 87