I include, without additional comment, an excerpt from a story on AdvisorOne in which Harry Markowitz suggests that 2008 was no big deal. The relevant passages:
“Whether you like portfolio theory or not, whether you think there are black swans or not, either you credit me or blame me, but I am the father of modern portfolio theory.”
Insisting that he looks at standard deviations and annual volatility dating back to 1926, when the Ibbotson series starts, Markowitz said that the financial crash of 2008 delivered only a moderate deviation from the norm of the S&P 500 annual return.
