"It Just Doesn't Matter!"

That is a line from Bill Murray's motivational speech from the movie Stripes.

It has also been a theme on this web site for the last day or two. A regular reader and insightful commenter, George, left a note on my post from this morning saying that staying in the game is the most important thing for do-it-yourself investors (everyone really).

For another little nugget along these lines I would refer you to the book review of sorts in Barron's of Yale endowment manager David Swensen's book, Unconventional Success.

Excluding catastrophic stock market losses, the important thing is having enough money for what you need or want to do (reasonably speaking).

If your life style needs $65,000 in today's dollars, your long term money needs to be able to generate enough future income in tomorrow's dollars to create the income. If you steadily lag the market by 150 basis points but meet your goal, does the lag matter? I'd say probably not. If you consistently beat the market by 300 basis points and you don't have enough, then what?

In both situations, saving becomes the more important thing.

Tying to George's point about staying in the game, most of the market's gains come from very few big years. Miss those and you will lag a lot.