There was an interesting, but disappointing, article in the Wall Street Journal in July.  The article, written by Jason Sweig, disputed some of the data used in the book “Stocks for the Long Run” written by Wharton professor Jeremy Siegel.

First, I disagree with two of the first three paragraphs of the article. As a financial planner, I don’t rely on the “gospel” in “Stocks for the Long Run” as mentioned in the piece. Of course, maybe some advisors do preach using the book for pep talks to investors, but, please, enough of the generalizations.  Call me defensive.

The article was disappointing, not because it points out flawed data, but because the article appears to be flawed itself. Eric Tyson, who has never been shy to point out shysters, poor data, flawed arguments, and failed gurus, went straight to the source -- Professor Siegel. Eric says, “…as Paul Harvey would say, here’s the rest of the story.”

I thanked Eric for his diligence on the matter. He replied, “I could not believe how many web sites ran Zweig's piece bashing Siegel's work without asking questions...it will be interesting to see how many of those folks cover the follow-up!”