Is it the personal advisor's job to maintain a disciplined 70% equity allocation appropriately balanced across the style box and wait for stocks to win in the long run? Or is it to do our best to understand the interplay between the economy and securities prices in the public markets and make judgments designed, for example, to help retirees maintain their lifestyle with real returns on their accumulated savings?
I think I'll go down to the library and see how things turned out for Cassandra.
J. Michael Martin, JD, CFP, is president of Financial Advantage in Columbia, Md.