Matthew, thanks for reading and responding. Certainly that kind of track record is impressive. I don’t have anywhere near 40 years of record, but in over a decade of real estate investing, my single family rentals have all beat the S&P 500 be a wide margin (data is here if you are interested: https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/real-estate-vs-the-stock-market-which-is-better-a8a1d58d9fc). I’m newer to active stock investing and have been beating the S&P 500 so far, but my record is too new to consider at this point, although I do believe traditional value investing (which I use) in the style of Ben Graham and Warren Buffett has strong potential. I still have a lot of money in low-cost index funds (my 401k and other tax-advantaged accounts) and am a strong believer in their power, but I also believe there are ways to do better.

Also note that if you can get better at investing and get better returns, you won’t need 40 years to retire. That’s the main point, really. If you can retire in 20 years, then you won’t have to keep beating the market (which takes a lot of work) moving forward.