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Originally Posted by lookout123
at no time in the history of this country has a 40 investment in treasuries outperformed the market.
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Not all funds perform as well as the market, and not everybody gets the average. For example, just over a quarter of the funds available in my 401k lost money this year (including 3 of the four that I have money in). Now, if I got discouraged with my choices and moved my money into other funds, the ones I moved into could easily do the same next year. If the average return is, say, 12%, there is a bell curve of people's actual returns centered on that.
Most of the funds available on my 401k are less than 10 years old, never mind 40, so most peoples money will have to be transferred between funds as poor funds are terminated, which means that those people will be selling at a point that the fund has been losing money, and probably buying a fund that is currently doing well. Most people will not have the advice of stockbrokers, and will be pretty much flying blind.