If we have learned anything in the past year, it is that a “buy-and-hold” strategy of buying stocks and holding them forever, confident that they will outperform in the long run, is not foolproof.

The most telling statistic to dispute the notion of “stocks for the long run” came from Rob Arnott, the head of Research Affiliates and a frequent contributor to the Financial Times, writing in the Journal of Indexes. He found that in the 40 years to the end of February, and again to the end of March, long-dated US Treasury bonds had slightly outperformed US stocks.