Here is a nice table from Prudential that shows the benefits of a good asset allocation. The second page has a statistic that shows the performance of the same allocation I use in my paper (20% each in US Stocks, Foreign Stocks, Bonds, REITs, and Commodities). 83% of the years since 1973 are above inflation, and 89% of the years are positive. They also have the data in a brochure – “The Case for Multi-Asset Class Investing“.
