Shocking New Report Wall Street Doesn’t Want You To See

I’m holding in my hands a hot-off-the-press Report from the well-respected research firm, DALBAR, Inc., about the actual returns investors have been getting in the stock market over the last 20 years. The news is shocking, but should make sense if you’ve been having the feeling your investment accounts aren’t rising at the rate the market has been…

• The average equity fund investor has gotten less than half of the return of the S&P 500 over the last two decades – beating inflation by less than 1% per year
• The average fixed income investor got – you should probably sit down for this – only 15% of the return of the related benchmark (Barclay’s Aggregate Bond Index)
• The typical asset allocation investor got less than 30% of the return of the S&P 500 – 2.12% per year to be exact – and didn’t even keep up with inflation!

So… was that worth all the roller coaster ups and downs and sleepless nights?

These are the conclusions of the 2012 Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior, a study issued every year by DALBAR, Inc., the leading independent audit and rating expert. They’ve been doing this for 35 years and have a reputation for unbiased evaluations.

Are you wondering how it’s possible that so many people underperform the market indexes by such a huge margin?

The biggest reason, according to DALBAR, is simple: Investors consistently buy and sell at the wrong times.

Last year – which was one of the most volatile years for the stock market in history – was particularly unkind to most investors. Equity mutual fund investors suffered an average LOSS of 5.73%, compared to a 2.12% gain for the S&P 500, which eroded their gains since the markets began recovering in the last couple years.

I suppose you could conclude from this that you just need to grit your teeth and hang on for dear life as the markets continue their volatile and unpredictable swings.

If so, I’d urge you to watch this video on why you’d need the Dow to be at 27,000 – today! – if you wouldn’t put up with the market unless you could get at least a 5% annual return.

If you’re sick and tired of playing the game by Wall Street’s rules, you do have a proven alternative…

It’s called Bank On Yourself, and hundreds of thousands of people use this method to grow their wealth safely and predictably every year – whether the market goes up, down or sideways.

Our surveys of people who use this method show that the biggest regrets they have are that they didn’t start sooner and put more into their plan.

So if you’ve been procrastinating on this, make today the day you take action. Keep in mind that these plans grow at an exponential rate (in the classic mathematical sense of that word), which means the sooner you start, the more money you’ll have to enjoy life.

Not to mention having the peace of mind that comes with having a chunk of your savings in a plan that goes in only one direction – up (and up faster).