During the last bull market, dividends yielded an average 1.5% while high-grade corporate bonds yielded 6%. When yields get to these levels, as William Bernstein suggested in The Four Pillars of Investing, long-run returns on the two assets are likely be the same (6%).

Lazy investors may be less enchanted these days with the Lazy Portfolio approach (investors hold a diversified collection of exchange-traded funds and are spared the task of researching individual stocks). Paul Farrell’s scorecard shows that eight high-profile Lazy Portfolios in the U.S. are down more than 25%, on average, over the ...