OK, deep breaths, deep breaths….The drivel the passes for reporting on retirement issues never ceases to amaze me. But this time I found a real howler. The “paper of record”, the venerable NY Times, recently published a piece on the 4% safe withdrawal rule, titled “4% Rule for Retirement Withdrawals Read more…
A while back I wrote about some historical analysis I had done that showed several ways that an investor could achieve market beating returns and thus maximize retirement income. It has been known for a long time that several ‘factors’ or characteristics of stocks generate market beating returns. The two Read more…
Its been about 2.5 months since my last post and after some consideration as to whether continue blogging or not I’ve decided to keep at it. I was recently inspired by a recent Frontline documentary called ‘The Retirement Gamble”. You can watch it on-line here. Its well worth your time. Read more…
Now that 2012 is behind us I wanted to update my analysis of the worst times to retire in history. See here for the original post. Armed with my own annual return data base I can now show at lot more detail as to the progress of the portfolios of Read more…
Time out in the boonies, in our case the wonderful eastern Sierras, almost forces you into a reflective mood. Yesterday was one of those days where the amazing beauty of a spectacular hike (see my wife’s post and pics here) got me thinking about what is needed for a happy Read more…
We are living through the greatest test of the 4% safe withdrawal rate in history. Sounds like a big overarching statement but that’s what the data tells me. A little over a year ago I questioned whether or not the year 2000 retiree would be the first to destroy the Read more…
Over the past year or so I’ve received many comments from readers that it is a bit difficult to find items on the blog, especially for new readers. The search function, categories, and tags are meant to help this but they don’t do a good job of providing an overview Read more…
The end of the third quarter was down right ugly. The end of Sept timing model sell signals proved out pretty well this month, preserving an investor’s capital. Lets look at the month end results to the timing model. For background on the model see here. The timing model status Read more…
Its been a while since my last post. Several weeks back I had a pretty serious family medical emergency. My mother was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease and I flew back to my hometown of Miami, FL to take care of things so to speak. Well, several weeks later the Read more…
Earlier this week my wife and I were discussing the stock market events that were taking place in front of us; markets gripped by political intrigue, both domestic and overseas, violent swings in volatility, slowing economic growth, and lots of uncertainty. I then started telling her about what my plan Read more…
How are the majority of retirees getting by? Do they have enough in savings and investments to make ends meet or live the lifestyles they want? This is a topic I think about a lot. Being on the road full-time and living the RV lifestyle my wife and I meet Read more…