There is not one asset class that I can think of that has done worse than the Equity Markets over this timeframe.
I'm glad I missed it; other than retirement mutual funds I sat it out and got 5 and 6% on long-term CDs.
I'm not bragging; it's just then I had lost faith that an individual investor had any business picking individual stocks. I stuck to dollar cost averaging in diversified funds in tax-deferred accounts.
After the credit crisis I thought it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to buy bellwether stocks. Companies such as Ford selling for $1 was insane, I figured. (I wish I had bought F; alas, I didn't. Perhaps it was me who was insane.)
I took out a HELOC, believing that if my house was losing value then it didn't make sense to have so much equity in it, and put it to work in the stock market. Next year the HELOC will be paid off and as of now I have over a 40% gain to show for it (I had continued to buy from DJIA = 10,000 all the way down to about 7000 or the gain would be greater; I had run out of cash by the time it was below 7K. Meanwhile, my home has continued to depreciate though at a more tolerable rate.)
My point is that you have to look at the time horizon. A buddy of mine projected that we'd perform exactly as Japan has over the last 20 years. He could end up being right. But since S&P = 650 we've done very well over the last couple of years in equities.
Bill
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