The Ages of the Investor
The Ages of the Investor is intended to be the first installment in the Investing for Adults series. Just as grown-ups do not believe in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus, investing adults know that there is no such creature as the stock-picking Fairy or the Market-timing Fairy. Further, there is no Risk Fairy who will write you cheap options that will protect your stock holdings against loss. Investing adults understand that a mean variance optimizer does not blend vegetables. In other words, this series is not for beginners. The Ages of the Investor covers the limits of market efficiency and diversification in increasingly non-segmented global markets.
The Ages of the Investor is divided into three phases: the beginning, middle, and end.
William Bernstein the stages of life cycle investing and how our working lives are often dependent on the demographics.
The author makes it a point that you should in fact hope for lower returns during your accumulation phase to be able to buy more stocks at discounted levels.