Retiring Early – Your Portfolio

May 15, 2010 by Jeremiah | 3 Comments

I don’t know about you but my thought is this. If you are investing for the long term in the stock market and you are a “set it and forget it” type of investor, you are getting nowhere FAST!

Don’t get me wrong. I will go out on the limb right here. I’ll say that many of the investment talking heads will tell you that you can’t time the market and you need to buy for the long term and stay in the market. Maybe you have heard that and are doing what they say.

I am here to tell you that little old me, Jeremiah John says, “This is plain stupid!”

You can’t afford to buy a stock or a bond or a mutual fund and not pay attention to it at least once a month, at the minimum.

Can I prove it? Let me try. Let’s see how a set it and forget it account does, shall we?

Go to Yahoo Finance. Click on the chart on the right hand side of the page. When the chart opens look for the line above the chart that says, “Want more control over the chart? Try our Interactive Chart.” Click that link.

This will open up a new page, showing the chart for the day.

Maybe it would be better if I showed you in a video what I am talking about.

Watching the video, you can see if you purchased a mutual fund that invested in the S&P 500 index back in May 2000 you started at 1491 and last week, May 10, 2010, the S&P stood at 1135. The difference is -356.

In 10 years you lost money by being a “Set It and Forget It” investor. In the next article I will show you how I use the red and the green lines to get into the market and get out and preserve your capital in up and down markets.

For Taking Early Retirement (TER), I hope you are enjoying a great retirement or are close to that day!