The single greatest benefit to being a long investor is it prevents you from making decisions.

It's such a simple and beautiful thing. I've mostly done that, buying a mix of good companies and holding them, with mind-boggling success. The early TMF had it right with their strong, quirky embrace of LTBH, playing a leadership role, and they really blew it when they followed the herd pursuing every investing option (no pun intended) under the sun. For me, TMF provided the company choices to investors through their services. I added a steadfast LTBH personality trait. I ignore most of it, don't fear the next thing around the corner, certainly don't try to time the market, and you could not pay me to look through financial documents. Or be tied to a computer screen.

It's really that simple, it's not that hard, people just make it so. I'm still holding 1997 AMZN shares (I've NEVER seen ANYONE on cnbc or TMF (except DG) with 1997 AMZN shares), 2008 AAPL, 2010 GOOG, 2010 BKNG, 2009 COST, 2009 SBUX, 2011 BRK.b, 2008 IPGP, 2011 WM, 2012 NFLX, 2013 ISRG, 2010 EXEL, 2012 CMG, 2008 UNH and many others that have done just fine, albeit more normal returns. I've also helped family and friends do the same. It's a shame that TMF did not stay the course with LTBH.

conifer