Ten years ago stock market enthusiasts were so confident that some proclaimed stocks to be a safer investment than bonds. But a comparison reveals quite the opposite. Despite whatever gains investors enjoyed over the last decade, most stock market players lost money from 1999 to September 2009. Meanwhile, bond holders made out pretty well. An assessment by Morningstar showed “that the stock market underperformed important bond categories over the 10 years through September—with an annualized loss of 0.2% for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, versus annualized gains of 8.1% for long-term government bonds and of 7.8% for long-term corporate bonds,” according to The New York Times. In fact, the underperformance of stocks goes back even further, to include the last 20 years.