You seem to be missing his point. For the person who hasn't the time nor the background the absolute best decision is to do something rather than nothing-- just put money in consistently overtime into low cost instruments. No one is disagreeing with that. What I'm saying isn't disagreeing with Warren Buffet-- the man uses valuation techniques to make his decisions (I asked you what he, or any of the other successful investors, do if not valuation...I don't think they throw darts at a board). I've been saying that valuation is absolutely important. It might not make sense for someone with limited time and background to attempt to do a valuation, but you can bet your life that the fund they're buying into has used valuation techniques, barring any funds that mimic something else, like an index fund. I understand you've read a few books, and that's great (no sarcasm). I read a couple of those recommended books also (I was in finance for school and work before medicine, so neither of us are talking out of our ass). I can tell you that most of those books are pretty rudimentary and are geared towards people without backgrounds in finance and investing (which is a good thing). That was one of the purposes of the books-- to make this seemingly complex mumbo jumbo become accessible and understandable for most people, because there isn't any reason someone shouldn't be able to build wealth for themselves. (Also, I'm not knocking those books, I recommend them to other people quite frequently...I was disappointed I had made it through my programs without having read The Intelligent Investor since it's quite popular.)
You're the one who implied you had research to suggest that valuation is irrelevant and that someone trying it would be wrong nearly every time (much different than Warren Buffett's advice that you're mentioning now). So, I'll say again, valuation might not be a practical consideration for the average person, but it is far from irrelevant or going to lead someone with the right skills to wrong decisions "nearly all the time". I'm not arguing that passive investing in low cost vehicles isn't a good strategy. I'm saying that valuation isn't irrelevant as you suggested. You keep mentioning academic research, so I'm not sure why you're trying to move that burden of proof to me. And again, the point you're missing is that many of the funds people passively invest in are composed of securities that research teams put a ton of work into analyzing and valuing. So the end user might not be doing the valuation, but someone is (again barring things like index funds, which often perform well).
So I went back and read some of your posts, and like I said, I don't disagree with most of what you're saying. Plastikos did say valuation (as per your advice) would nearly always lead you astray, which is what I said was terrible advice. Although your initial posts seemed to be more about timing the marking (or the idea to avoid that, which I generally agree with, except when there's blood in the streets it's time to buy...that whole thing...), however you seemed to take the defensive of the point that valuation will lead you astray. If we've gotten mixed up here, I understand, but it seemed an awful lot like you took that stance that Plastikos ascribed to you, especially since you didn't initially point it out to me that I was arguing something you hadn't directly said. In either case, I stand by what I was saying: valuation is absolutely relevant and doesn't lead people astray "most of the time" if they know what they are doing. Warren Buffett does this himself, but of course, most people don't know what they are doing, and I agree with his advice that you've been mentioning (although we can note his style of investing is much different than the average investor-- people try to pull a fast one and say diversification is a myth since Buffett is so concentrated, yet they miss the point that he owns much larger amounts of outstanding shares that he can effectively make the business run as he wants).
Edited to remove something that was meant for perspective but could sound douche-esque, which isn't my intent
