Phil Town (author of Rule # 1 Investing) talks about his approach to Value Investing as a way to achieve a minimum (presumably, long-term) 15%+ compounded return in the stock market.
On his blog he recently fielded a question from a reader who asked:
Even though the reader doesn’t tell us how much ‘retired’ is, I think it’s worth revisiting Phil’s response:
The time frame is too short to stockpile stocks and be sure to retire in 5. We need more like 20 to make that work. So you’re going to trade using Rule #1 strategy and tools.
1. You’ll live to 95, so retirement is 60 years.
2. You’ll need at least $50,000 a year in 2009 dollars.
3. Assume you’re trading and making 30% adjusted for inflation (so 34% or so before inflation).
4. Assume you’re adding $10,000 a year for next 5 years.
5. In 5 years you’ll have $283,000 in 09 dollars.
6. You’ll have to make 18% after inflation to get $50,000 a year in 09 dollars.
7. Conclusion: Doable, but you are not retired clipping bond coupons on some beach in the South Pacific. You’re still investing. Better if you had more in the nest egg in 5.
So, Phil’s basically demonstrated that it’s not doable … at least not with stocks; it MAY be doable with a very high risk (read: great deal of luck) aggressively trading options and / or business startup strategy.
Here’s Phil’s suggested solution:
Q: How to get more when you have less?
A: Leverage. Other people’s money.Q: How do you get other people’s money?
A: Four ways:
- Trade on margin: 50% loan. You’ll more than double your return to $558,000.
- Trade derivative (options) so your dollar represents only a small portion of the underlying security
- LP: Raise $600,000, 34% ROI is $2.4 million in 5 years. You keep $500,000. Plus you got $40,000 a year to manage it. This is more or less what Buffett did in the 50’s and 60’s
- Put half the money in a startup and help make it go big.
My re-examination of an old forgotten portfolio chimes in to some extent to this post.
I couldn’t understand why this particular portfolio hadn’t been decimated in the market crash – how could it be ?
The answer may have some influence on how quickly you can meet you goals from trading in the stock market.
The post is over on shareyournumber:
http://shareyournumber.ning.com/profiles/blogs/fast-forward-4-years-into
KC
“Put half the money in a startup and help make it go big. ”
This is the one I like, although it’s risky. But not doing nothing is risky also
@ MoneyMonk – I’m with you on this! 🙂
“Trade on margin: 50% loan. You’ll more than double your return to $558,000”
That seems like more than enough money to retire happily… I’d recommend that option =)
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