Hard money vs long stocks

At this time of the year, people usually write articles on what the year gone by was like and/or what the year ahead will be like. Last January, I remember writing an article that looked back on 2022 and said it was a 'Good bad year'. By that, I meant that on paper, it looked like it should have been a bad year, what with the war in Europe, an oil price spike, some China COVID idiocy that I can't remember the details of, etcetera. However, despite these events, it was a relatively good year for investors. By the same standard, 2023 was a good year, so by the principle of mean reversion, are we now due for a bad year, or perhaps a bad good year? It doesn't matter. Most predictions are worthless over a period as short as a year, even though they might make sense over a longer period. Here's a fascinating example. Over the last three years, the consensus Wall Street fo