The first full year of performance for my stock selections was 2004, so that is 10 full calendar years of a model portfolio track record (all created and reported by a neutral third party in Marketocracy), and so far, 2008 was the only year that was negative. I'm sure there will be other negative years, but in the long term, if an investor has patience, I believe this is an excellent way to preserve a person's wealth against inflation and even grow it nicely