If you’re like most people, you believe history tends to repeat itself. That’s an important idea to remember when it comes to saving and investing for retirement. The stock market has been repeating itself consistently enough throughout history for us to see some repeatable long-term patterns, which are important to understand when building a smart, defensive investment strategy.

Most people have probably been told that the market averages about a 9% return over the very long run. But the way that average breaks down is that 2–3% of this return comes from stock dividends, and 6-7% comes from capital appreciation; in other words, a 6–7% average growth rate over the very long run.