Long term investment is a sensible choice, if the odds are favorable. For company stocks, it is even the "right" strategy.
For company stocks in the U.S. in aggregate buy and hold is suicidal over the next 10 years while the demographic curve forces distribution.
This summer will be the first glimpse of reality peeping into the fed-induced bubble of unreality we have enjoyed for 5 years, but just a foreshadowing really.
Seems like the democrats are going to want to prop up the economic system, at least until after the November 2014 elections, no?