Wh... Wh.... Wh(eee!)... Party like it's 1929

[W2R]

The Dow is up more than 100 points as I write this.

Please, please, no more "Wh***".

At least not from "The Oracle of New Orleans"

WHEEE!!!!

Your pleas fall on deaf ears. The Dow closed above 13,000, life is good, and my portfolio looks fantastic. Might as well enjoy it. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" as the saying goes.

 

[MichaelB]

WHEEE!!!!

Your pleas fall on deaf ears. The Dow closed above 13,000, life is good, and my portfolio looks fantastic. Might as well enjoy it. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" as the saying goes.

You're really tempting fate, aren't you?

 

[REWahoo]

That poor lady has lost complete control of her whee-er. Guess that happens to some folks when they age...

 

[audreyh1]

WHEEE!!!!

Your pleas fall on deaf ears. The Dow closed above 13,000, life is good, and my portfolio looks fantastic. Might as well enjoy it. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" as the saying goes.

In anticipation of a wheee from our own W2R, I went ahead and rebalanced today before the market close since the 1.5%+ gain was what I needed to trigger the rebalance.

I even wrote a fix to my spreadsheet to compute today's equity gain and bond loss so I could get the right ratios before close. Normally, I wait until the next day and hope the gains hold, but not with W2R's finger on the trigger!!!

And look at this - W2R has a super Wheee! for us

The NASDAQ 3040 close is the most impressive IMO. Last time the NASDAQ closed above 3000 was Dec 2000!!!!

Now I can go to sleep for the rest of the year.... Just wake me up if the market goes up or down another 10%, OK?

Audrey

 

[W2R]

That poor lady has lost complete control of her whee-er. Guess that happens to some folks when they age...

Yep! Totally unglued...

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Lsbcal]

WHEEE!!!!

Your pleas fall on deaf ears. The Dow closed above 13,000, life is good, and my portfolio looks fantastic. Might as well enjoy it. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" as the saying goes.

W2R, please let us know when you decide to raise your withdrawal rate. Only then will I start to worry.

 

[W2R]

W2R, please let us know when you decide to raise your withdrawal rate. Only then will I start to worry.

I did some number crunching to duplicate Raddr's nominal table (thanks to Nords for bringing it to my attention). After that little exercise I'm thinking of lowering my withdrawal rate, not raising it! That table is pretty doggone scary, to me.

Granted, I didn't retire until 10 years later and it is a worst case, but still that table is pretty sobering. It will help us keep our feet grounded in reality as we ....

........PARTY ON!!.........

 

[REWahoo]

I did some number crunching to duplicate Raddr's nominal table (thanks to Nords for bringing it to my attention). After that little exercise I'm thinking of lowering my withdrawal rate, not raising it!

While you're at it, why not return the furniture, sell the Venza, and get a job. No reason to take any chances...

 

[W2R]

While you're at it, why not return the furniture, sell the Venza, and get a job. No use taking any chances...

To quote Khan, "I'd rather give up a kidney!" No way, not me.

I'm sitting on my new easy chair with my feet up on my new ottoman, and this feels so comfortable. I drove my Venza today and it was so much fun with the dual sunroofs, in this gorgeous weather. And I was Want2Retire, and did!

Ah, REW, life is so good... all this, and the market is up, and all of our portfolios are growing and looking pretty fine. If life got any better I might just smile big enough for my head to break in two.

 

[Lsbcal]

I did some number crunching to duplicate Raddr's nominal table (thanks to Nords for bringing it to my attention). After that little exercise I'm thinking of lowering my withdrawal rate, not raising it! That table is pretty doggone scary, to me.

Granted, I didn't retire until 10 years later and it is a worst case, but still that table is pretty sobering. It will help us keep our feet grounded in reality as we ....

........PARTY ON!!.........

First time I've seen that table. Some things that stuck out to me:
1) Why did the retiree stick all his FI into essentially cash when he had high real rates back in 2000?

2) Didn't the retiree start to draw on SS to keep his withdrawals lower at some time in those 10 years? Seems more realistic to me.

3) Investing in the SP500 was a highly undiversified move, particularly in the year 2000. That was because of the tech bubble which hit the SP500 particularly hard.

In short, that was a cherry picked portfolio and timespan (as well as assuming no reactions from the retiree) to get really bad results. Nice if you like horror movies.

 

[W2R]

First time I've seen that table. Some things that stuck out to me:
1) Why did the retiree stick all his FI into essentially cash when he had high real rates back in 2000?

2) Didn't the retiree start to draw on SS to keep his withdrawals lower at some time in those 10 years? Seems more realistic to me.

3) Investing in the SP500 was a highly undiversified move, particularly in the year 2000. That was because of the tech bubble which hit the SP500 particularly hard.

In short, that was a cherry picked portfolio and timespan (as well as assuming no reactions from the retiree) to get really bad results. Nice if you like horror movies.

Well, that's true. If my portfolio started to go down sharply like that, I would probably claim my SS and supplement that and my tiny pension by withdrawing cash (or G Fund, which also cannot lose share price). Selling low just isn't a good choice.

 

[REWahoo]

If my portfolio started to go down sharply like that, I would probably claim my SS...

Been there, done that (late 2008).

 

[packrat44]

........PARTY ON!!.........

There you go again.

 

[haha]

This is frightening.

Ha

 

[NW-Bound]

I think W2R has gone

.

She will not stop until this is the result.

Problem is that we might just also go down the tube, and be living like this. Sigh...

 

[W2R]

Like this forum member? I actually took this photo in November, 2008... but it really isn't a forum member. It is just a homeless person who walked in front of my camera as I was trying to photograph the cool pie-shaped building behind him.

 

[NW-Bound]

Yes, the "Recent Photo" thread will be filled with pictures like that if you keep this up.

 

[easysurfer]

Like this forum member? I actually took this photo in November, 2008... but it really isn't a forum member. It is just a homeless person who walked in front of my camera as I was trying to photograph the cool pie-shaped building behind him.

That's what I call a photobomb.

 

[clifp]

First time I've seen that table. Some things that stuck out to me:
1) Why did the retiree stick all his FI into essentially cash when he had high real rates back in 2000?

2) Didn't the retiree start to draw on SS to keep his withdrawals lower at some time in those 10 years? Seems more realistic to me.

3) Investing in the SP500 was a highly undiversified move, particularly in the year 2000. That was because of the tech bubble which hit the SP500 particularly hard.

In short, that was a cherry picked portfolio and timespan (as well as assuming no reactions from the retiree) to get really bad results. Nice if you like horror movies.

The portfolio is 75% S&P 500 and 25% 6 month commercial paper. The reason for this mix it is the basis of most early studies on SWRs, like Trinity. There is also more historical data for these assets than things like the total stock market or total bond market. The 75%/25% AA is (was?) considered the optimal mix especially for retirements over 30 years. It is also the default AA for FIRECALC. So while I agree it isn't the most diversified portfolio it is far from a bad one.

But most of all if you listening to financial pundits around 1999/2000 (I was too new retirement to be a pundit at this stage but rapidly working my way to this vaunted position ), a 4% SWR and asset mix like this was consider if not 100% safe than very conservative compared to the 5 or 6% talked about by folks like Peter Lynch, Andrew Tobias and the folks who appeared on Wall St. Week with Louis Ruykeyser .

As far as collecting social security, a few of us who retired early back in 1999/2000 are still a decade away from collecting SS even at 62. The 4% SWR Y2K in his early 40s will be lucky to avoid running out of money before
being able to cash his first SS check.

(as well as assuming no reactions from the retiree)

I believe just like "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy " no retirement plan survives the first bear market or economic crisis. The Y2K retiree has been blessed with many opportunities to correct their retirement plan.

The key take away from Raddr's work is A. don't retire right before a bear market, and awful decade for stocks, and far more importantly folks who retire without COLA pensions need to be very adaptable. I failed miserable with A, but did ok with B.

 

[traineeinvestor]

The key take away from Raddr's work is A. don't retire right before a bear market, and awful decade for stocks, and far more importantly folks who retire without COLA pensions need to be very adaptable. I failed miserable with A, but did ok with B.

Just let me know when the next bear market is due to start so I can time my pension-free retirement accordingly......

 

[clifp]

Just let me know when the next bear market is due to start so I can time my pension-free retirement accordingly......

Check the thread title and W2R track record with Wh(eee). I wouldn't start my retirement today

 

[traineeinvestor]

Check the thread title and W2R track record with Wh(eee). I wouldn't start my retirement today

Great. Just Great. Now I have to plan my retirement around W2R's forecasting.

 

[W2R]

Great. Just Great. Now I have to plan my retirement around W2R's forecasting.

Either that.... or not!

 

[bssc]

Of course, since no one believes W2R any more, the market will keep going up.

 

[Major Tom]

I wish this could have happened on a Friday so we'd at least have the weekend to gloat over our stashes before they go down again on the next trading day