Retire Early Lifestyle
Retirement; like your parents, but way cooler

In 1991 Billy and Akaisha Kaderli retired at the age of 38. Now, into their 4th decade of this financially independent lifestyle, they invite you to take advantage of their wisdom and experience.

Is Opportunity Knocking in the Financial Markets?

Billy and Akaisha Kaderli

Opportunity knocking

I have been successfully investing for over four decades. Yes, I have made my share of costly "educational" mistakes, but we are still here. Mostly throughout this time I have been on my buy and hold plan, kicking back and enjoying the returns. I have always known about the ten-to-twenty-year market cycles, from when I worked on Wall Street, but the Great Recession gave me the opportunity to be re-educated.

Remember, the learning never stops and our objective is financial sustainability.

Billy and Akaisha in Phuket, Thailand

Age brings perspective

Akaisha and I are rapidly approaching 72 years of age.

I am a realist, and in regards to our investing approach, I am now measuring the “long term” in years as compared to decades. After the decline in 2008, I decided I needed to be proactive as compared to holding forever and letting the market whipsaw our net worth.

Where do you stand?

Everyone must find their level of comfort when it comes to investing, and the market drop of 2000 and 2008 has definitely tried the patience of many. Some have sworn off the stock market forever and others went to cash and are still sitting there looking for the perfect entry point. A lot of money went searching for safety and poured into bonds. I decided to alter our portfolio, changing from open-ended mutual funds to using Exchange Traded Funds, otherwise known as ETF’s.

Real time benefits

ETF’s trade in real time so I can see the price at any point throughout the trading day as compared to the open-ended funds that are priced once daily, at the close of the market. If a change needs to be made - either buying or selling - I do not have to wait until the end of the day to learn at what price the trade was executed. This gives me more flexibility and control over our portfolio.

I am not day trading, and still use SPY, VTI, DVY and VGT as major positions, but have disciplined myself enough to realize quickly when the market is going against my trade and I make adjustments accordingly. Or, for example, if a recent purchase has increased to the point where it’s-too-good-to-be-true, I take the gain.

Learning from flat line returns

I am neither a bull nor a bear and riding the market up and down only to finish flat is not a winning strategy. Markets usually do bounce back, but it takes to time recover the losses and that’s a commodity that we have less of at our age. Successful investors know the secret to building wealth is to limit losses. Now, if you are younger or just starting out this is not so much of an issue. However, as long term gets shorter by the day for us, our goal is to keep more of the profits to better enjoy ourselves for the time we have left here.

Present and future approach   

I still have a core portfolio that is not touched, and so far, I have been buying or selling only in our IRA accounts. This negates having any tax nightmare and for now, that is my plan.

I am very much looking forward to the day when I can once again go long and forget about it, putting our portfolio on autopilot. However, in the meantime, there are financial opportunities to be had.

Utilizing ETF’s have offered us possibilities to make money with more flexibility no matter which way the market goes, and that is something our previous buy and hold philosophy didn’t offer.

Retire Early Lifestyle appeals to a different kind of person – the person who prizes their independence, values their time, and who doesn’t want to mindlessly follow the crowd.

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