Hi There. Is this a smart decision?

[FinanceDude]

Honestly my portfolio is the least of my worries. None of my investments are correlated to any of the regular "run of the mill" investments, markets or asset classes that most are accustomed to.

It doesnt matter to me about conditions such as a strong economy, low inflation, high interest rates, or a depressed stock market, real-estate boom n bust etc.. (until I start investing in realestate). My investments are focused on 5 and 15 minute time frames and charts only! They are only focused on technicals, zero fundamentals. I have also played a helping hend in developing a traingular arbitrage system which is as close risk free investing as one can get. Of course I have risk, but its all very well managed. I really do not like to discuss my portfolio with people not familiar with alternative investments as it usually always ends up in a war I find! I go through this enough with my girlfriend's co-workers and one of her friends who is a financial advisor.

My entire portfolio is NOT traditional investments, which what most people retire off. Hence why I am looking to do it, early, and with a much smaller nest egg. While I do realise that even though my portfolio is robust, it certainly may not last forever. Many factors playing a toll on its success. Which is why I have contingencies, but also, because I will always be looking for new, and testing new investments. When I say "retire", I guess that is a loose term. I am not looking to go "bird watching" every day. But live a really relaxed lifestyle, monitoring my investements, and always scouting out new ones, and looking for new and interesting opportunties. This is another reason why Panama is interesting to me. Because of the very business welcoming environment currently existing there.

How will you achieve a relaxed retirement when it seems your portfolio requires the workload of a day trader?

 

[donheff]

So Sidekick, if you are convinced that you can earn 10-40K/mth on a $325K portfolio why in the world are you posting questions to the bunch of real world losers you find here? Sh*ts and giggles?

 

[skyline]

This cracks me up...

...Lets just leave it at "i will generate a healthy incoming" from an average sized nest egg, and have contingencies in place, if somethign fails.

Why would someone with guaranteed income and rock-solid contingencies have any concerns about their plan? I'm guessing there's something about your plan that you know is full of holes - otherwise you wouldn't bother wasting your time asking questions about this. No one can help, however, if you aren't willing to share your concerns since, as stated, you're basically bullet-proof...

 

[haha]

Just imagine that he is doing market research for a very attractive, high return, low risk investment service to be offered to selected individuals.

That help?

Judging by the responses of the board, he has a winner.

 

[haha]

Why would someone with guaranteed income and rock-solid contingencies have any concerns about their plan?

Just imagine that he is doing market research for a very attractive, high return, low risk investment service to be offered to selected individuals.

That help?

Judging by the responses of the board, he has a winner.

 

[Sidekickeh]

Hey guys. I am not tring to get into fights with anyone here. Just looking for some feed back that is all. I see some of your posts are in disbelief, or just plain condescending. That is fine I suppose. I didnt expect most people to agree with what I am doing, nor could care less who believes a word I say.

I just returned back from 4 days in Mexico, and 4 days in Panama. It was a very interesting trip! I met someone in Mexico, livinging in a very nice condo for less than $300 per month (renting), 5 mins from the beach. Of course she had utils etc.. on top of this, but I am convinced its true that with a portable income you can truly live "twice the lifestyle, half the price" in the right locations. Especially when you factor in everything, including taxes.

I am pretty dead set on making the move, probably before xmas of this year. More than likely the start of the dry season. The question simply remains where. Panama, Mexico, or Argentina. These are the 3 finalists! More research for sure.

 

[Sidekickeh]

I LOVE ^^^^ this question ....

To the questions above. I have been invested with 90% of my traditional portfolio (which is open to the public FYI) for close to 2 years. However I started out with a very small amount (roughly 10K). In the last part of 2009 I was awarded a nice consultancy bonus for assisting a large and wealthy group from Oregon build an arbitrage system (I introduced a developer/programmer to a strategist, and also made an introduction to a brokerage which allows arbitrage to take place, and provides an environment for it to trade). The Oregon group paid for the project, owns the system, and is using it exclusively for their own private use (not open to the public). I took my large faciliation fee (which now constitutes for the majority of my portfolio) and have access to use the system on my own monies free of charge. While I would really like to move all of my portfolio over to this system, I will never put all eggs in one basket. But to answer the question, the bulk of the portfolio has been in trade for nearly 2 years. It has been small, but still grew at a nice pace. IN 2009 a large lump sum was added to it.

Since then, I have not been compounding, as I have been pulling profits each month. I have paid off a huge amount of debt, and have made a few purchases. I am now ready to let at least 50% of my monthly gains compound (maybe more depending on performnace). So yes, I should not have quoted numbers (dollars) in terms of performance, but %s would be more accurage, since the dollars amounts will be changing each month as I let the investment grow (or shrink).

 

[Sidekickeh]

Here's a couple things to consider before you take the plunge:
- Have you read "How I Trade For A Living" by Gary Smith? You apparently can make it work just like he did, but is that how you really want to live your life? Perhaps a more important question would be "Is that how your significant other wants to live their life with you?"
- One critical lesson from Smith's book is that "Technical indicators work very well-- until they stop working." If you haven't experienced that problem yet, then you would do well to consider your response in that eventuality. Notice that I didn't use the word "possibility."
- Many expats report difficulty accessing their brokerage accounts from overseas. Issues include bandwidth, foreign IP addresses, poor connectivity, time zones. Have you tried doing this for a few months from your chosen location?
- Have you put together a way to access cash for living expenses? Again you may be moving largish sums of money among various accounts from an overseas location. That generally triggers a number of electronic banking alarms.
- Healthcare?
- Kids/family?

Let's assume that you've discovered the perpetual-motion golden-egg-laying goose. In that case perhaps you'd want to consider the answers to a couple other questions:
1. How much of a loss do you take before you decide to switch to Plan B?
2. If you keep piling up the capital gains, when do you quit? $5M? $10M? $100M? At some point the size of your system is going affect its performance, just like mutual fund bloat. Yeah, I know-- tough problem. I'm just pointing out holes.

Thank you Nords for your response. No, I havent read the book you mentioned above. I have just read the book "Trading in the Zone" though over my last trip down south, and found it very interesting. It deals heavily with the pyschological effects of trading/investing. I do do self-directed trading on my own, but its with small amounts and mainly for fun. I do not want to do this for my career. I would rather leave this to professionals who do it for a living. If i were to do it for my job, I would not do it manually, but would have code written to do it for me. You are rigth, the last thing i want is to stay up all hours in the night pumping stress through my veins and die an early death. I agree with you on the technical indicators though. All indicators are lagging to some degree and go stale, so you have to have your portfolio finely tuned to contend with this.

I have had no problems accessing any of my portfolio while travelling. All i need is an internet connection and a piece of software that I download. I do not have any problems on that front.

I understand the concerns on moving cash around internationally. However, my experience has been that as long as you are within the law, are not doing anythign shady, and can justify your transactions, money is usually not more than a 5 day bank wire away from wherever you want to send it. My bank is a large European bank (very reputable) with branches in Panama (which is a huge banking and finance centre itself), and my broker is also in Panama and Switzerland (none are in my home country). I do no think that there will be any problems, unless there comes a tiem where i want to move a very large sum for a single transaction. But banking is based mainly on relationships, transparency, and the banks level of comfort they have in you. I will of course work on strengthening any relationships here, and will of course do all I can to prevent any issues from arising in the first place.

- Health care - will definitly look into this for more coverage than what my visa offers. Health care is excellent in Panama, and probably about 1/5th the cost than what it is in the USA. I met a women in Panama City, last week who flew there JUST to get breast implants. For the quality and the price. THat was the only reason she was there. Not that i am looking for these, but just to make the point. Panama is known for very high quality health care at great prices. Kids... not in the foreseable future for either of us. Of course this may change, and I know it will have a large impact on our plans if they come into the picture. Suppose we will cross that bridge when it comes.

1. I am not sure on the losses before moving some out. But I would think that if i incurred a -30% loss on my entire portfolio combined at once, I would be looking to make some major adjustments to it.

2. Liquidity will certainly become an issue. Our brokerage has access to top tier liquidity, and they have a plan in place to ensure we have some nice longevity with the arb system (running it at only a fraction of its potential) so as not to draw any unwanted attention. My other investmnets in the portfolio will almost certainly close their doors to new capital once they have problems getting filled due to liquidity. Splitting funds across muliple brokers may help wtih this, but its a very big and liquid market for most of my portfolio.

FYI.. i do not think that I have the golden egg, or have the holy grail. I do think that I have something very good, which has extreme potential, but i know the realities of alternative investments. This month i expereinced a loss in 2 of my investments that I have not seen in a long time. I do understand that losses will occur from time and time, but I also understand how quickly losses can be recouped when given the apropriate time to do so. I dont believe that there are any holy grails.

NOrds, regarding bloat and liquidity issues, my plan is to eventually move my assets into more brick and mortar type investments, such as real-estate, and other ventures. I really want to focus on aggressive growth until I reach some of these bench marks (and I have that number of 5M in my mind as a benchmark) before doing this. I know that the mentality of most is to wait until i reach it before making any sudden or rash moves. But I am not one who wants to sit around and wait for things to (hopefully) reach bench marks before making any major moves in life. I am the type of person who likes to take on challenges, new opportunities etc... what i am getting at is that i am not the safe and security type. Certainly more aggressive and more of a risk taker. But that is how i like to enjoy my life. Maybe I will loose everythign I own and hit rock bottom in a few years, but hopefully i will have learned a lot along the way, and will be able to do it again. Guess we will see. But as it stands rigth now, I am 99% moving to latin american, to live off my investments and start a new life and new projects before 2010 hits. In the mean time. Its research research, and hard work until then.

 

[BunsGettingFirm]

Here's a couple things to consider before you take the plunge:

- One critical lesson from Smith's book is that "Technical indicators work very well-- until they stop working." If you haven't experienced that problem yet, then you would do well to consider your response in that eventuality. Notice that I didn't use the word "possibility."
. I'm just pointing out holes.

That's why despite months of back testing, I have yet bet a $1 on any trade. I have simulated 2 years of good 20%-30% returns, followed by a year of 20%-30% losses. If I had actually based my ER decision on those two decent years, I would have been seriously screwed.

For me, trading will mostly likely be a lunch money generator and hobby to keep my brain working.

 

[Nords]

For me, trading will mostly likely be a lunch money generator and hobby to keep my brain working.

That works great for the first five years or so, but eventually you find yourself questioning the need to put capital at risk for even those small amounts...

 

[Moemg]

I say go for it as long as you are open to going back to work at some time in the future !

 

[Red Rover]

It seems like you're going to go for it, regardless so I wish you good luck. As some other posters have noted, you're young enough to recover if things go horribly wrong. Everything I've read about moving to another country says to rent for a while before you buy as a lot of people can handle specific places for short periods of time but it's a different ballgame when they live there permanently. I would probably rent for at least a year in one of the places you are looking at to make sure you like it enough to live there full-time before making the move permanent but that's just me.

My concern with your plan is what happens if things do go wrong and you want to go back to Canada? If you have renounced your citizenship, can you get it back? If so, how easily and cheaply? You could find yourself somewhere you don't want to be for the long term and a citizen of a country you don't care for and not be able to get your Canadian citizenship back. If so, then how will you survive/make money?

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Well, I have to apologize.

Invest Like Buffet and Retire in Style - Yahoo! Finance\

Buffet thinks an individual investor can do it. I am pretty sure I can't, but maybe someone else can.

 

[Red Rover]

Wow. I wish I could make those types of returns. For those interested, the stock mentioned in the Buffet article above is NPK.

 

[Danmar]

Canadian tax is based on residency not citizenship. No obvious need to give it up.

 

[Sidekickeh]

Yes Danmar that is correct. The plan is to be non-resident for tax reporting purposes, bbut to of course keep my citizenship.