A conservative investment strategy should exclude ordinary shares. Do you agree?

Question

A conservative investment strategy should exclude ordinary shares. Do you agree?

Answer 1

No.  In fact, it should include some, especially if the investment is to be long term.

Answer 2

Actually,  in this day and age when the Fed is giving money away and driving down interest rates below the rate of inflation shares are your only hope of a conservative investment strategy.

Answer 3

This is a frustrating question.  "Conservative" means so many things to so many people that it is totally meaningless.  You need to look at time frame.  Shares shouldn't be used as short term investments (where you will need the money in less than 5 years).  Some investments frequently labeled as "conservative", like government issued bonds, have a low risk of loss on nominal principal, but a high risk of loss in real value due to inflation.  Think about all the people you hear about complaining about their "fixed income"; these were "conservative" people.

For long term investing, buy shares.  If you don't want to spend a lot of time studying the market, stick to established companies that pay dividends and have a history of increasing their dividends regularly.