My main goal* was to build an investment and cash portfolio of $1,120,000* ($1,000,000 to retire on and $120,000 to pay off the house) in 1500 days**, starting from 1/1/2013 and ending in February of 2017. I made my goal in 2016, my 1500 Days are over, and I’ve left my job. In the interest of openness, I’ll continue to share my numbers. For now. I’m not quite sure what purpose this serves, so I may discontinue this feature soon.
Tech Gone Wild?!
At the gym this morning I was listening to the Animal Spirits podcast. Host Michael Batnick mentioned that the tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 is off to its best start every. Through August 1st, the index was up almost 39% while the S&P 500 was up 16%. Impressive:
I thought that piece of information was pretty neat:
Best start ever!
I told Mindy about it and made a mental note to do some more research when I got home.
The great start isn’t so impressive when you zoom out to the start of 2022. Note that in the chart below:
- The NASDAQ 100 and S&P 500 have performed almost exactly the same
- Both are below their all-time highs
I then looked at my portfolio and saw that I’m still below time highs as well:
Thoughts
- 2022 was a very bad, no-good year. At one point the NASDAQ 100 was down over 30% and the S&P 500 over 20%. The black swans of the Ukraine invasion and inflation beat down the markets.
- What to do? Even if you knew about the very-bad-events coming in 2022, what would you have done? Consider COVID. After an initial drawdown, the markets recovered and went nuts. Who would have known this was going to happen? You can’t predict a black swan. You also can’t predict the reactions to its arrival.
- Be wary of when you hear advice. Whenever anyone tells you about an investment, do your own research. Make sure the data isn’t cherry-picked and that there aren’t ulterior motives involved.
- To the long-term investor (and we should all be long-term), the great start of the NASDAQ 100 is mostly useless information.
One of the best parts of being a long-term investor is that you’re liberated from having to worry about any of the above points. Put money away for at least 10 years. Set it and forget it.
July Performance
July was another great month. Our investments went from $4,384,858 to $4,539,865 for a gain of $155,007:
2023 (as of 8/1/2023)
- Days elapsed: 212
- Investment gains: $1,427,044
Since the Start of The Experiment (1/1/2013)
- Days elapsed: 3,865
- Investment gains: $3,953,822
Big Tech
My great gains this year have been mostly due to big tech (see full portfolio here):
While I don’t buy stocks much anymore, I’m holding on to the ones that I already own. AI will be a huge source of productivity growth. Google, Tesla, and Meta are investing hard and heavy in the AI space. I’m optimistic.
Tesla shareholders could be in for some pain though. The CFO just quit (or was he fired?). I have heard rumors of manufacturing Cybertruck setbacks and would be surprised if any reached customer hands this year. The EV tax credit is switching to a point-of-sale rebate and this will cause customers to postpone purchases to 2024. I’m a long-term investor, so don’t care. Check back in with me at the end of 2025 and we’ll see how it all shook out.
More 1500 Days!!!
You can also find me (and the dinosaurs) at:
Mile High FI podcast:
Also here:
- Facebook: Facebook group and page
- YouTube: My channel is mostly devoted to home improvement, but I have some other material coming up soon too.
- Instagram: Pretty pictures of dinosaurs, sunsets, and nail guns!
- Twitter: Spontaneous, often insane, ramblings
- Coworking space: On the surface, MMM HQ is a coworking space. Look a little deeper and you’ll see that we’re really building community. The members of MMM HQ are some of the finest people I know.
*My goal wasn’t to have $1,120,000 at the end of 1500 days, but at any time before the day count was up. Why? It all goes back to the 4% Rule. Remember that our little friend, Mr. 4%, is nothing more than the most conservative safe withdrawal rate. Since my investment portfolio now sits at $1,550,000, I can spend about $62,000 in my first year of retirement.
**My original goal was $1,000,000 and no debt, I later raised the goal by $120,000 to $1,120,000 because I will have debt in the form of a mortgage and I firmly believe in not paying it off (LOOK at the MONEY I’m MAKING!). My compromise was to have enough money put away to cover the mortgage at the time of retirement.
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Hey Carl, nice reminder on staying focused long term. Those are some gains on individual stocks! I don’t think I could keep such a big slice in a handful of stocks. Maybe with a high absolute total, it’d be easier.
Small bone to pick: I disagree with labeling inflation black swan. It was widely called out in 2020 and 2021. Just took a year or two to really hit. I believe that’d be called a gray swan, like earthquakes in California. We know they’ll happen, but not when or how strong.
Ukraine war is more of a black swan. Until the buildup of troops several weeks before the invasion, it was near impossible to gauge the probability that it would happen.
COVID itself was a gray swan. Preceded by other wide pandemics like SARS. Called out years earlier by some knowledgeable folks, including Nassim Taleb and Bill Gates, but no one knew when.
I’m stepping off the soap box now. 🙂
Haha, points taken!
Please let me know when the next crazy thing is about to occur! 🙂
I do worry about a Taiwan invasion which seems like it will happen in the next 3 years or so. Scary.
Ok. I’ll keep you posted on the next crazy thing. ????
Taiwan invasion wouldn’t be black swan, even though consequences of that are impossible to predict. At this point it’s so watched out for that maybe it’ll be diffused or avoided and won’t happen (not by force, anyway).
Hi Carl,
2022 was a great year for a late starter like me. I put every penny I could in VTI/VTSAX. It was also a test of my patience. I was sold at long term investing but can I actually withstand a 20-30% draw down? Covid recovery was too fast so it was not a great learning period. But 2022 made me realize, I have been a good student and have lot of patience. It’s only because I have great mentors like you , MMM, JL.
I am at a great place mentally. I am feeling confident and happy about my life and the direction it is moving. I am surrounded by kind and wonderful people from Fi community.
Cheers!
Rakesh!
Patience indeed! 2022 was nutty and I think we could be in for some more tough times. I’m thinking about a Taiwan invasion which would shake markets up violently.
I love that you share your numbers please don’t stop. I wish more people did. I struggle to put things in perspective. I have a net worth of around 6.7 million and still work a job I don’t like. I can’t convince myself that I might have enough. Seeing other people make it with similar numbers is great. Maybe one day I’ll pull the ripcord.
Thanks for the encouragement!
6.7m and you don’t think you have enough?!?? That’s a big egg. Care to expound? Anything I can help with?
If you don’t want to discuss publicly, you can always email me: mr1500 at 1500days dot com.
Quitting wasn’t easy for me, but the Other Side is glorious.
How much of the word content is dedicated to self referential, self promotional material? This I find not particularly consistent with the purported stoic/ moustachioed philosophy undergirding this whole thing. Also if you got 4 million on the market, do you really need to be shopping affiliate links? It seems desperate.
Hi Tom!
“How much of the word content is dedicated to self referential, self promotional material?”
My original intent of this blog was for it to be an online journal to document my journey to financial independence. So these performance updates are all about me and they’re supposed to be. I’m not sure what your beef is, but maybe I get it. Take a look at this post and you’ll see this front and center:
“In the interest of openness, I’ll continue to share my numbers. For now. I’m not quite sure what purpose this serves, so I may discontinue this feature soon.”
When I started out, I had a fraction of my current net worth. Now though, I worry that that these posts are unrelatable.
“Also if you got 4 million on the market, do you really need to be shopping affiliate links?”
There is a total of one affiliate link (Empower) and I continue to leave it because I think the product is genuinely useful. I’d have it in there whether they paid me or not.
And are you saying that after a certain net worth, everyone should work for free?
Hey this is a nice engouraging post. I’m more or less on the same journey. More after the freedom than the money as I want to quit a dreadful job.
My goal is to get there by end of 2025, almost half way but need to do still a lot. Not sharing any financial numbers but my age will be 45 when I reach my goal. Pretty decind number to retire I think. Again, thanks for your wonderful post.
Thanks for the comment! Please keep in touch and let me know next time you make it to Colorado USA.
Hey this is a nice engouraging post. I’m more or less on the same journey. More after the freedom than the money as I want to quit a dreadful job.