This data would seem to indicate to me that investors looking for income and income growth from their investments are quite possibly better off in the stock market than the bond market, provided, of course, that they have enough assets to generate a livable dividend income from their holdings. Fewer years of income decline, higher total income growth over time, and what looks like orders of magnitude better overall performance. From my reading, it looks like the people running the study invested in an asset on a given day, held it for a year, sold, and immediately reinvested in a similar asset. Hence, the 'change in value of of principal' column.

It's an interesting read on the income performance of stocks versus bonds, and it provides a different perspective than I'm used to seeing. Given that this is the Retirement Investing board, I'd be interested in reading everyone else's opinions.

The only argument I have against it is that it fails to take into account the limited investment horizon of the retirement investor.

If you have 80 years to compile data, you may get the results above. However, when you may only have 20 years of life after retirement, you can't afford the risk that YOUR 20 years will be the bad years where stocks fail to perform.

Splotto