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INCOME UNLOCKEDDon’t Retire Broke… and Maybe Even Retire Early

Invest Like The Pros

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

How to Get the Retirement You Want (And How My Friend Retired at Age 40) by Charles Sizemore 4

My Retirement Strategy: It’s Not Like Yours and It Shouldn’t Be! By Harry Dent 6

A Look Inside My Retirement Plan by Charles Sizemore 8

The Importance of ‘Stockpiling Wood by Adam O’Dell 10

No One Cares as Much as You – So Do Your Diligence by Rodney Johnson 12

My Four-Step Retirement Plan by John Del Vecchio 14

Start Now and Take Action by Lance Gaitan 16

Why Income Matters by Charles Sizemore 18

EDITORS

Harry Dent

Charles Sizemore

Adam O’Dell

Rodney Johnson

John Del Vecchio

Lance Gaitan

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Retirement is entirely personal, as the strategies that each of the Dent Research editors share in this

special report will show you. From Harry to Adam, and Rodney, John and Lance, they each approach

their retirement planning a little differently, as we all do, depending on our needs and wants.

But their stories all share one common thread: the importance of generating income. Cash in your

pocket. It’s essential to achieving your retirement goals – be it that trip you’ve always wanted to take or

simply having the ability to spend as much time with family and friends as you want. Yet creating reli-

able and consistent income streams can be tough, and fleeting, especially as we age, and the markets

ebb and flow.

Luckily, our go-to retirement expert, Charles Sizemore, has a proven, effective solution to consistently

generate cash – no matter if you’re in retirement, close to it, or just thinking or dreaming about it. In this

report, he and the rest of the Dent Research team explain how and why it’s so important to unlock your

income potential, and show you the path for doing it.

HOW TO GET THE RETIREMENT YOU WANT (AND HOW MY FRIEND RETIRED AT AGE 40)

Earlier this year, I met an old friend in Dallas for a beer and a cigar.

I very rarely smoke cigars anymore, but one of the benefits – I would go so far as to call it a health

benefit – is that smoking a cigar forces you to sit still and relax for a good 45 minutes. It’s a good way to catch up with someone you haven’t seen in a while.

As we lit up and settled in, my friend David had some interesting news for me.

“I think this might be my last year,” he said from across the table, smoke wafting into the air. “Things are going well at the office. In fact, I just got a promotion. But it’s wearing me out, and I want to spend more time with my family while I’m still young enough to enjoy it.”

Now, I’ve had plenty of conversations like these with colleagues over the years, and it’s perfectly normal. Except for one thing: David is only 39 years old.

My friend will retire later this year at the ripe old age of 40.

And no, he didn’t win the lottery, he’s not a Silicon Valley millionaire, and he’s not a trust fund baby. Far from it. In fact, in addition to his three kids, David financially supports his elderly parents.

I set my Shiner Bock beer down and shook his hand. I was genuinely proud of the guy.

So, how did David do it? How did a guy with a modest background put himself in position to leave the rat race for good?

It helped, of course, that he and his wife are both college-educated and have consistently had high-paying jobs. Though I’ve never asked, I estimate that each of them earn a healthy six-figure salary.

But then, so do most Dallas yuppies, yet I don’t know any others retiring at 40.

David and his wife also live a modest lifestyle, though not by any means what I would consider spartan. They

have a nice 3,500-square-foot home in an affluent north Dallas suburb, but they bought it for a song as a fixer-up-per. They’ve made plenty of upgrades over the years, but they were always cost conscious about it. And both of them drive older cars that they originally bought used.

They also always managed to avoid exorbitant daycare costs by relying on family for support. That easily saved them many thousands of dollars per year. And rather than eat and drink in ritzy bars and restaurants, they’ve always been more likely to grill steaks in their backyard and enjoy a bottle of wine at home with friends.

So, that’s great. They make decent money and live below their means.

Anyone who read The Millionaire Next Door could tell you that, given enough time, saving and investing your money will eventually get you a decent-sized next egg. But that’s the slow road that generally doesn’t pay off until you’re in your 60s or 70s.

So… what was David’s secret?

It’s twofold. First, he was willing to take a modest amount of risk when the odds were in his favor, and

By Charles Sizemore, Editor, Peak Income

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READ ON AND CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW TO DO IT.

second, he created durable income streams that will continue whether he goes to the office or sits at home in his bathrobe.

After the 2008 meltdown, David used his savings to buy rental houses at rock-bottom prices. The low prices kept his mortgage balances small and allowed him to pay them down a lot quicker. Today, they’re now all paid off, so every dollar he collects in rent is effectively pure profit, after allowing for taxes and very minor maintenance.

The cashflows from his rental properties are now suffi-cient to meet his living expenses indefinitely. Home prices could go up, down or sideways and it wouldn’t really matter for his bottom line.

Now, let me be clear on something, I am distinctly not recommending that you run out and buy a portfolio of rental houses. Prices are up in most markets, and yields are down. David himself has no interest in adding to his rental portfolio at today’s prices.

But while I’m not recommending his asset class of choice, I would recommend that you take the same basic approach when evaluating your own investments. Look for something with decent upside potential but little in the way of downside.

And focus on assets that throw off a consistent stream of income.

On that note, I have a newsletter dedicated to doing exactly that. In Peak Income, I look for consistent, steady income opportunities that are a little off the beaten path.

I’ve found what I call Private Income Funds. They can trade above or below their estimated value, depending on how investors view them at the time. Which can mean more profit opportunities for us.

And, most importantly, these funds automatically give you reliable streams of income. Once you buy them, you can mark your calendar on what to expect payouts, so you can plan for whatever it is you want to do, like make your own retirement more comfortable, or maybe help a child or grandchild with college expenses.

In the rest of this special report, me and the Dent Research team will detail exactly how my income strategy fits into each of our retirement planning approaches – yes, even Harry’s! – and how you can start or catch up on the path to the retirement you hope for.

I can’t guarantee that you’ll retire at 40 like my friend David, but I can definitely help you boost your take-home pay. No matter if you’re in retirement, near retirement or, like he was, wishing that you were.

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MY RETIREMENT STRATEGY:IT’S NOT LIKE YOURS AND IT SHOULDN’T BE!

By Harry Dent, Founder, Dent Research

investments were largely in new ventures.

I invested in people who were potentially changing the world in a big way.

I could afford the risk to invest in my passion.

I think most of you intuit that I’m not like the normal guy out there. I think outside the box, analyze everything, and respect and revere cycles as much as I hate them for their downside.

The truth is, I’m an entrepreneur more than I am an economist. In fact, I think economics is mostly a load of B.S., and there are only three classical economists I pay any attention to: Dr. Lacy Hunt, Steve Keen, and Robert Shiller.

As an entrepreneur that just happened to trip onto demographics while consulting to entrepreneurial busi-nesses in the 1980s, I found a profession that was stale and ripe for radical new insights…

That’s how I became a “rogue economist.” And most economists hate me for daring to disrupt their nice, neat and academic “pipe and cloak” club.

The reason I respect Robert Shiller, who is more traditionally academic and now more respected, is that he came up with new indicators that showed that real estate doesn’t appreciate long term when adjusted for inflation… Damn! (The same is true for gold.)

And he adjusted P/E ratios (valuations for stocks) to iron out extreme cycles with a 10-year moving average for earnings… kudos again.

He saw the bubble peaking in late 2005 in real estate, as did I, and he is now worried again about another bub-ble in stocks.

But back to my story…

Since I am an entrepreneur by nature, I take big risks and I’m enticed by radical innovations that can change the world.

I have no interest in being in “the club.”

I have little interest in traditional asset allocation and balanced risk versus reward strategies.

So, I invested in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when I made the most money from books, speaking and investment – when I was bullish and popular. But those

Harry S. Dent Jr. studied economics in college in the 1970s, receiving his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and was elected to the Century Club for leadership excellence.

Harry grew to find the study of economics vague and inconclusive and became so disillusioned by the state of his chosen profession that he turned his back on it. Instead, he threw himself into the burgeoning new science of finance which married economic research and market research. Identifying and studying demographic trends, business cycles, consumers’ purchasing power and many other trends empowered Harry to forecast economic and market changes.

Over the last three decades, he’s spoken to executives, financial advisors and investors around the world. He’s appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC and CNN/FN. He’s been featured in Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Fortune, Success, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, American Demographics and Omni.

Harry has also written numerous books over the years, becoming a best-selling author. In his most recent book The Sale of a Lifetime: How the Great Bubble Burst of 2017 Can Make You Rich (2016), Harry looks at the upcoming economic crisis and reveals how it could be the single greatest chance to build wealth we’ll ever see and how we can capitalize on such a unique and historical opportunity. He explains how many of the richest Americans in history have used this same kind of opportunity to quickly accumulate incredible amounts of money, in a short period of time.

But I didn’t fully understand those risks.

Such new ventures have extreme failure rates. They’re like babies crawling in the streets without parents to protect them! I put most of my money in new ventures and saw almost all of them fail. I finally got it when I talked with a friend who was a major venture capitalist investor. He said: “Harry, we only make it on one out of 11 at best – and we’re the best at what we do.” Well, his one was Oracle… and his returns were way better than mine. It’s what he did… and he got lucky on top of that.

Still, that didn’t stop me. Eventually, that one for me was… my own company! I learned to “stick to my knitting.”

So, now that I’m older and “wiser,” do I still invest more in other new ventures as I approach retirement?

No *bleeping* way! My circumstances are different now, as are my needs. I need more income and lower risk as I get ever closer to retirement.

Of course, I have no intentions of ever retiring. I think the whole concept is complete idiocy. Human beings are not meant to sit idle for decades. Still, I realize that, as I age, I must prepare for a time when either health or some-thing unexpected slows me down. I’m a risk taker, yes! But I’m not stupid.

So, I now have two baskets of assets. The first is a cash hoard. I’ll take 10% and profit from the initial 40% crash in the bubble burst ahead. The rest of that cash I’ll put to work in our array of investment plans for a balance of risk.

I’ll start with Adam, Lance and John’s services – Cycle 9 Alert and 10X Profits, Treasury Profits Accelerator, and Hidden Profits and Earnings Insider Alert, respectively – and then move into the lower risk strategies like Rodney’s Triple Play Strategy and Charles’ Peak Income over time.

The latter is what the rest of the Dent Research team is going to talk to you about in this comprehensive report.

My second basket is my one real estate asset that has done better than any new ventures I tried. I’ve been renting my primary home since late 2005, when I forecast the real estate crash. After all, I eat my own cooking.

The only real estate I kept was a 25-acre lot on an is-land with the best view ever. I kept it both because it was my “getaway” if things get as bad or worse than I expect, but more because it was due for five-acre zoning which has now finally happened. That means I not only have a house worth a lot with almost no debt, but I now have four extra five-acre lots to sell, and they’re each worth 70% of what the original 25-acre lot was worth… oh yeah!

So, my strategy is to get more conservative while still taking some risks. And my real estate will become a cash flow machine through rentals… at least for now.

Then, around 2024-25, when the baby boom peaks in its retirement and vacation-home-buying cycle, I’ll sell my house and those four extra lots. That will greatly increase my nest egg for “retirement.”

You may be wondering about why I’ve got real estate as part of my retirement plan when I believe we’re in for another real estate bust. It’s a good question. And a simple one to answer. I bought this property decades ago, at barrel-bottom prices. Even once real estate prices reset, as I expect them to, I will still have a decent investment on my hands. It’s a win/win on real estate that otherwise would be a horrible investment for most.

So, that’s my retirement plan.

I’ll enjoy paradise, moving between a great San Juan condo and an ultimate vacation home – both with killer views – until well into my 70s. Then my wife and I will move back to Florida, to be close to the best medical facilities anywhere. We’ll steadily get more conservative, building income as much as possible, while still taking some risks. What can I say? Once a risk taker… always a risk taker.

But the key component of my retirement strategy is income.

Everything I’m setting in place – with the exception of the 20% I’m risking – is designed to feed me more and steady streams of income with every year that passes. And that’s what Charles Sizemore aims to do for his Peak Income subscribers.

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A LOOK INSIDE MY RETIREMENT PLAN

I pay my bills by telling other people what to do with their money. But I’m often asked:

What do I do with my own money?

Well, that’s a very legitimate question, and I’m happy to share.

Before I get into it, I have to throw out a few common-sense caveats. I’m 39, have two

young boys in the house that can clean out a pantry faster than a swarm of locusts, and a

stay-at-home wife. I’m also in the prime of my career and trying to stash as much cash away

as possible for retirement.

You might be in a very different stage of life or have a very different situation. What makes sense for me might

be absurd for you.

So with that said, let’s get into it.

The backbone of my retirement planning is remarkably conventional.

I max out my 401(k) plan by the full $18,000 I’m allowed every year, like clockwork. The precise allocation of

the 401(k) plan will change, and you can always get an idea of my latest thoughts in my retirement letter, Dent

401k Advisor. But my number one priority is dumping that first $18,000 in savings into my retirement plan.

I also have a decent amount of “side hustle” income that I do my best to shelter as well via a SEP IRA. (Yes, if

you have income from both a normal W2 job and separate 1099 income from side projects, you can contribute to

and even max out both a 401(k) and a SEP IRA.) This is fairly common with doctors that are employees of a hospital

but also have self-employment income from a private practice.

And finally, like virtually everyone else in America these days, I’ve been corralled into a high-deductible health

insurance plan, but I do what I can to turn that to my advantage.

By Charles Sizemore, Editor, Peak Income

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I dump the maximum $6,750 into my health savings account and effectively use it as a spillover IRA. (There are big differences between HSAs and IRAs that I don’t have time to get into here, but this is how I personally allocate my investment dollars.)

The key takeaway?

I focus on getting the money in the right accounts before I spend a second worrying about what specific investments to buy. This makes all the sense in the world, because the “returns” you get from tax savings and em-ployer-matching absolutely obliterate the returns you’re likely to earn from the investments themselves.

We’re talking annual “returns” in excess of 40% for investors in the highest tax brackets. Not even George Soros or Warren Buffett, in their primes of their careers, were able to consistently generate returns like those.

Once I have the cash in the proper account, I focus on what to actually do with it.

Like everyone else, my 401(k) options are limited to a smattering of mutual funds. I do the best with the options I have and invest along the lines of what you see in Dent 401k Advisor. Company rules don’t allow me to purchase any stock I specifically recommend to readers, but I follow the same basic allocation guidelines.

I have the most freedom with my non-401(k) savings, as I’m not limited to a menu of mutual funds. And this is where I get more creative, and where my income service, Peak Income, comes squarely into play.

I’m a big believer in the Private Income Fund space I recommend in Peak Income, and I invest a large block of

my non-401(k) savings in these kinds of funds. Like I said with my 401(k) recommendations, I’m unfortunately not allowed to buy the funds I recommend per company rules, but the private income space is large enough to allow me to get close enough.

I do make one big deviation though. Peak Income is dedicated to generating current income for people in or near retirement. Well, I’m a long way from retirement, so I automatically reinvest my dividends in new shares. This transforms “boring” income-focused funds into growth compounding machines.

The remainder of my portfolio is allocated a little more exotically.

I have some money invested in real estate (still mostly boring, conservative mini-storage units and the like), in long/short strategies and in a few other concepts I still consider experimental at this point. But one thing that all of these options have in common is that they are uncor-related… both to each other and to the stock market. That’s a big deal, as diversification is worthless if every-thing you own rises and falls together.

I also have one final “investment.”

Like most Americans, I have a house with a 30-year mortgage. But I despise having debt… the very idea roils my stomach. So I “invest” in paying down my mortgage early. I’m running about 10 years ahead of schedule with a goal of having the house paid for in another few years.

Then I suppose I’ll have one additional asset allocation decision to make… convincing my wife that we don’t need a bigger, more expensive house. But that’s a decision for another day.

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I N C O M E U N L O C K E D10

By Adam O’Dell, Chief Investment Strategist, Dent Research

I remember distinctly the mo-ment when “retirement planning” took on a personal meaning to me.

I was kayaking with my wife along the Myakka River, which runs some 60 miles through the “Old Florida” prairies and wetlands of

central Florida, just east of Sarasota.

Along with alligators, the river is teeming with history.

It’s believed Juan Ponce de León was the first Europe-an to explore the land, in the 1500s. The Seminole Indians inhabited the area in the 1700s and early 1800s. And then cattle farmers moved in on the fertile region in the late 1800s.

Somewhere along our paddle, we stopped at the abandoned camp of one of the region’s early settlers. All I remember seeing as we pulled our kayaks to shore was a small wooden structure, slightly bigger than an outhouse, and, nearby, an enormous stockpile of firewood.

The pile of wood had to have been 100-times larger than the house itself – it was stunning!

I asked our guide, “what’s with all the wood?”

He quickly answered, “that’s an old-school retirement plan right there.”

That’s when the lightbulb went off for me.

You see… retirement planning is about self-sufficiency!

Whoever settled that camp along the Myakka River hundreds of years ago…

Nobody gave him a pension-and-gold-watch retire-ment. He didn’t have an employer-match on his tax-advan-taged 401(k). Social security… “what’s that?”

According to our guide, this early settler felled trees and split fire wood every single day of his life.

He knew that if he didn’t do it… no one else would

do it for him. And further, he knew if he ever got old or

injured… he wouldn’t be able to produce firewood… and if

he didn’t have enough stockpiled by then… he’d die.

A bit morbid, yes – but honest. He didn’t pretend. He

didn’t delude himself into thinking that someone would

have his back one day. He just got down to business.

Thankfully, the retirement planning for modern Amer-

icans is not as do or die. But sadly, most hopeful retirees

haven’t stockpiled nearly enough wood.

Consider the stats…

Chief Investment Analyst, Adam O’Dell, has one purpose in mind: to find and bring to subscribers investment opportunities that return the maximum profit with the minimum risk.

He achieves this with his perfect blend of technical and fundamental analysis. Tactically, he does exhaustive back-testing and probability-based research. It’s the ultimate partner to the exhaustive economic research that Harry and Rodney do in the exciting realm of the new Science of Finance.

Adam has worked as a Prop Trader for a spot Forex firm. While there, he learned the fundamentals of trading in the world’s largest market. He excelled at trading the volatile currency markets by seeking out low-risk entry points for trades with high profit potential.

Aiming to find the best opportunities across all asset classes, Adam expanded into the commodities, equities and futures markets.

An MBA graduate and Affiliate Member of the Market Technicians Association, Adam is a lifelong student of the markets. He is editor of our hugely successful trading service, Cycle 9 Alert.

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“Fifty-one percent of households are at risk of not having enough savings to maintain their standard of living after retirement.” — The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

“Sixty-six percent of Americans said their top financial concern was not having enough money for retirement.” — Gallup poll

But beyond the research and statistics, I’ve seen this retirement dilemma first hand. I was working as an advi-sor for a Fortune 500 financial planning firm throughout the 2008 market crash.

Each week, I met with dozens of families, all of whom were trying to figure out how to get to age 65 with a sufficiently large nest egg.

Most of them were looking to “buy and hold” to get them there. So, suffice to say, the 50%-plus drawdown in their buy-and-hold portfolios was threatening – particu-larly for those who were just a few years from that golden 65th birthday.

It was saddening to watch. These were good people with good intentions… and they couldn’t figure out how to afford retirement.

Simply put: “buy and hold” let them down!

It’s tragic, really.

Alongside the move from pensions to 401(k)s, the onus of retirement planning was shifted back to the individual. And the only best advice they’ve been able to get for much of this time has been “just buy… and hold.”

Sure, buy-and-hold has worked for some investors, but it’s sorely disappointed others. Consider this chart, which I first shared with attendees of our 2016 Irrational Economic Summit. It shows the total return of buy-and-hold for distinct periods of time.

As you can see, buy-and-hold turned $1 into $11.90 between 1982 and 1999. But between 2000 and present day, buy-and-hold has done little for retirement savers – turning $1 into a measly $1.35.

SOURCE: www.dentresearch.com

The Trouble with Buy-&-Hold

$14

$1.08

$10.83$11.90

$0.94 $1.35

$12

$10

$8

$6

$4

$2

$01929 -1943 1944 - 1964 1965 -1981 1982 - 1999 2000 - Present

Growth of $1 (S&P) (in�ation-adjusted)

I’m sure you know by now that we’re not big fans of buy-and-hold here at Dent Research.

Each of us – Harry, Rodney, Lance, Charles, John and myself – have rejected the spoon-fed advice of buy-and-hold… and we’ve each found our own ways to grow our wealth and plan for retirement.

Me…?

I’m a trend-following systems guy – so that’s the type of firewood I’ve been stockpiling for my own retirement.

Harry…?

He’s a big thinker and risk-taker – so he’s found tremendous success building his retirement nest egg through some unconventional means.

And Charles…?

He’s a stodgy conservative – so he’s found ways to get automatic checks every month!

The great thing about investing is there are many ways to “win” at it. What’s right for me isn’t always going to be right for you. And that’s OK.

You’ve just got to figure out what works for you… and then get to chopping that firewood! Or collecting those automatic checks…

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NO ONE CARES AS MUCH AS YOU – SO DO YOUR DILIGENCE

By Rodney Johnson, Senior Editor, Economy & Markets

And no one’s going to be as concerned as you are if things don’t work out the way you planned.

That’s why every one of us must be as diligent as possible when making life choices. And after choosing a spouse, mapping out a secure financial future has to be at the top of the list.

So with the markets looking for direction as President Trump gives Democrats, other world leaders, and even many Republicans heartburn, now is a good time to think about what you own, and why.

When I look in my accounts, I’m happy that I can explain much of what I own, and how I think it will lead to a more comfortable future.

I’ve written on retirement planning a number of times, and my theme remains the same.

I’m more interested in building streams of automatic income than I am buckets of wealth. Many people think

I moved houses not too long ago. And it was a royal pain.

Beyond the hassle of physically getting all of our stuff from one state (Florida) to another (Texas), I have to deal with a mortgage lend-

er on the new house. At first, against my better judgment, I called my bank.

As I told the guy I spoke with, I’ve hated the bank for the entire 23 years I’ve been with them. There’s been way too many hassles for what should be simple business transactions.

But the local people I’ve dealt with the last few years have been very helpful, so I took a shot, despite my gut.

It lasted three days. By the fifth call to follow up on docs and verify what was going on, I realized that every time I speak with them I have to go through a phone tree.

Yes, I know the guy’s five-digit extension. And yes, after entering, I can verify that’s the extension I want. Then, after he answers, he’s required to recite his mort-gage lending number, his name, and that the call is being recorded.

After that, I’m required to prove who I was by recit-ing my full mailing address and social security number… Every. Single. Time.

I told him that, as much as the bank told me this was a personal banking relationship, I couldn’t help but think that friends don’t operate this way. He said it was just protocol. I said goodbye.

It doesn’t matter how much the bank advertises that it wants to be my “friend,” or that it “knows what I need,” the truth is that it’s just business. Period.

I wish advertising wasn’t so hypocritical, but that’s a story for another day.

Today, the lesson learned – or at least reiterated – is that no one really looks out for you better than you.

No one is as interested in your success as you.

No one will care as much if you fall short of your goals as you.

Rodney Johnson works closely with Harry to study the purchasing power of people as they move through predictable stages of life, how that purchasing power drives our economy and how readers can use this information to invest successfully in the markets.

Rodney began his career in financial services on Wall Street in the 1980s with Thomson McKinnon and then Prudential Securities. He started working on projects with Harry in the mid-1990s.

He’s a regular guest on several radio programs and is featured on television where he discusses economic trends ranging from the price of oil to the direction of the U.S. economy. He too is a regular guest on Fox Business’s “America’s Nightly Scorecard.”

Rodney’s book, Irrational Economics, explains the forces that you cannot see but that really drive the economy and markets and can cause your wealth to rise or fall. To survive and prosper, you need the new money rules of the 21st century, which he outlines in this book.

they’re interchangeable. They aren’t. If you end up with a big bucket of money in an account, good for you. But then what? Do you spend it down? And how are you going to build it? Through high-risk invest-ments that might or might not pay off?

I know that sort of thing works for some people, but not me. I like to sleep at night, so I take a different approach.

I have a few life insurance policies with dividend riders that grow tax free. I’m able to borrow against them without taxes as well. When I pass, the insurance proceeds will settle up against anything I’ve borrowed, and then pay out to my heirs outside of probate. This part of my plan falls into the “set it and forget it” category.

I also have an allocation to equities, where I use a proven strategy to grow the value over time. It’s not high risk, but the value does fluctu-ate with the markets. My goal is to obviously outperform buy-and-hold, which I’ve been able to accomplish. But there is risk.

The last big piece of my plan involves fixed income, which I can use today in the accumulation phase of my plan, and keep using once I get to retirement age and start drawing from my investments.

This is where I use a strategy very similar to what Charles does in

Peak Income. It’s one that’s designed to hand you “automatic checks” every month. And, in fact, it’s modeled on my personal investment approach.

The key to this part of my specific portfolio is to understand how the investments react to interest rate changes, and then consider what lies ahead. Rising rates hurt certain funds more than others. But falling rates give these funds a bigger bang for the buck. Also, they can trade above or below their estimated value, depending on how investors view them at the time.

I mentioned that fixed income was the last big piece of my plan, and it is. But I do keep a small amount on the side for high risk, high payoff investments. These tend to be private investments that are illiquid, but could be home runs.

It doesn’t make much sense to get involved in these things, but something in me just calls out to swing for the fences once in a while. To date, I’ve made five such investments. Two lost money, one paid off modestly, and the remaining two are still in play.

It’s a good thing I allocate most of my holdings to more conserva-tive investments. Otherwise, I’d find myself in retirement looking for someone to care about how much I lost along the way.

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MY FOUR-STEP RETIREMENT PLANBy John Del Vecchio, Editor, Hidden Profits and Earnings Insider Alert

That’s not to say I’m cheap and live like a pauper or any-thing like that. I’ve traveled the world and I enjoy life. But, I don’t have three stereo systems and five flat-panel TVs. Come to think of it, I don’t even own a car!

Step two is to own everything. In case you haven’t noticed from looking at my last name, I’m Italian. I think it’s in my DNA to pay cash for everything, so I use credit lightly. In the 23 years since I’ve had a credit card I have never paid one cent in interest. You don’t get rich paying someone else 15% a year to buy stuff you don’t need with money you don’t have.

Same goes for a house. Why is it good to have a tax deduction for your mortgage interest? Have you ever looked at an amortization schedule? All of the interest is billed up front. I paid off my first home in 11 years.

What’s more, I lived in the same place for 15 years de-spite stretches where my income was more than 10 times higher than when I first bought it. I simply obeyed the magic formula. Just because I made more money didn’t mean I needed to blow it. My digs were plenty fine. Just be happy with what you have!

There’s no need to keep up with the Joneses. They’re broke anyway.

Step three is to invest in yourself. Once you’ve saved

Ahhhh retirement!

Most of us would love to be on a beach somewhere right now sipping a frothy Bahama Mama. But very few of us want to put in the right kind of effort to get us there.

Retirement may seem way off in the distant future or even simply an unreachable destination. But we can get there with just a few steps.

Step one is that you must know the magic formula. It’s really simple to understand, but not that easy to abide by.

Here it is:

Income – Expenses = Savings

See, it’s simple! No algebra required. The reason why it’s not easy to abide by is that we live in a culture obsessed with consumption. Consumption is 70% of the economy, after all.

The average American has over 300,000 items in their homes.

300,000!

All that stuff can’t even fit into our houses, and so the storage unit business is booming! We are a nation of hoarders, it seems. There are even TV shows about hoarders followed by TV shows of people buying storage lockers filled with stuff after those hoarders haven’t paid the bills.

Unfortunately, people don’t save. That’s just the cold hard truth. Statistics show that nearly 50% of Americans could not fund a $400 emergency. Scary!

So, step one is to ditch the consumption culture and save first rather than spend. One way to do this is to max out all of your retirement plans. Since I’m self-employed I have a particularly great plan that allows me to stash away both the maximum 401(k) contributions allowed and maximize profit sharing pre-tax. Then I also have my IRA.

Simply put, since this money goes from my corporate account into my retirement accounts I never see it. So, I pay myself first.

Then I save a portion of my after-tax money as well.

Author of What’s Behind The Numbers: A Guide To Exposing Financial Chicanery And Avoiding Huge Losses In Your Portfolio, John Del Vecchio is a forensic accountant at heart. Standing on the shoulders of the great David Tice, James O’Shaughnessy and Dr. Howard Schilit, he built a framework of algorithms and a multi-factor grading system that has made him one of the more successful short-sellers around. John graduated summa cum laude from Bryant College with a B.S. in Finance and was awarded Beta Gamma Sigma honors. He earned the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in September 2001.

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more than you make and you own everything, a good way to ramp up your wealth is to invest in you! I don’t mean ripping through $100,000 on an online degree that won’t land you a job. I mean develop a skill. Do something other people don’t want to do but need.

My cousin Eldo once told me that if you want to learn how to do something, get an estimate. By that he means if someone tells you it costs $25,000 to paint your house, you’ll become quite handy with a brush in a short amount of time. That’s exactly what I did.

I bought a home and renovated it for my Dad. The painters’ quotes were outrageous, and while painting a house is not as simple as filling up the roller with paint and slathering it on the walls, it’s not rocket science either.

By the time I was done, I became good enough to paint other hous-es. I did an analysis and determined I could make $100,000 annually working 3/4 of the time and undercut the local competition.

Of course, that’s just a fall back option. My largest gains have come from taking small bets on myself, such as developing a product or ser-vice and selling that to others. I have made gains far larger than in the public markets and I have never lost money betting on myself.

You can do it too! And it’s worth checking out what my colleague Charles has to say about collecting “automatic checks.”

One problem though is that I cannot compound this wealth. The cash flow needs to be invested elsewhere. That’s where the markets come in.

Step four is to invest in instruments that you can stick with consis-tently for the long-term. It may be all stocks. It may be a combination of stocks and bonds. Or, you might be an international explorer and find

those markets more attractive.

Mine is a combination approach. Part of my process recognizes that

I have no idea what’s going to happen in the future. Neither do you.

Stocks are expensive but they could stay expensive. Interest rates are

low but they can stay there. So, a portion of the portfolio should be in a

few asset classes that over time should do okay if held long enough.

The second part of the approach is following trends. What goes up

could continue to go up. What goes down could continue to go down.

The trend is your friend until the end when it bends. So, by investing in

some trends, you’re always in when the market is going up. But, you’re

not always in the market. And while you may get whipped around, you

most likely will be out when a huge smash occurs.

And the third part is sentiment and valuation based. When there’s

blood in the streets, invest. When you attend your holiday parties and

everyone is telling you how much money they made in the markets that

year, call your broker the next day and reduce your positions or get out

altogether.

Whatever you do, the portfolio must fit your personality. There’s

four steps to investment success…

Step 1: Stick with your process.

Step 2: Stick with it through thick.

Step 3: Stick with it through thin.

Step 4: Stick with it through hell or high water.

If you can do all of that, you’ll be headed in the right direction to

meeting your retirement goals. Bottoms up!

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START NOW AND TAKE ACTIONBy Lance Gaitan, Editor, Treasury Profits Accelerator

happened to include three ex-wives and three children. All

were very expensive and affected my retirement saving

decisions.

The good news for me is that I’m now an empty-nest-

er… free of kids and ex-wives! That means my spending

has gone down dramatically and I’m really getting serious

about retirement saving!

I’m still behind where I think I should be to have a

comfortable retirement, but I’m getting closer, faster. Ob-

viously, it’s been especially helpful being on the other side

of kids and divorces, but also important here is bringing a

sense of focus to retirement planning.

I haven’t given up all risk and still trade a lot of options

but I have given up on the ultra-high leverage of futures

trading. I’m nearly maxing out my 401(k) contributions, as

Charles suggests, but didn’t do so early in my career as he

did.

I’ve known Charles for about 10 years and, as I can at-

test, he puts his money where his mouth is. Some people

like to spend their money; Charles prides himself on fru-

gality and saving. At our 2016 Irrational Economic Summit,

Sometimes I like to joke that I plan for my retirement every Wednesday and Saturday… as that’s when they draw numbers for the Powerball lottery.

Half a billion dollars would make for a pretty sweet retirement nest egg and you can’t win if you don’t play, right?

As fun as it is to play “what if” to the tune of a hypo-thetical half a billion dollars, retirement isn’t a joke. But I am in a similar situation that many find themselves in – meaning I’m getting close enough to smell retirement but not on track to retire comfortably when I thought I might have.

How much do I need to retire? Probably a lot more than I have! According to the September 2014 issue of Federal Reserve Bulletin (yes, that’s exactly as exciting as it sounds!), the average American is well shy of having saved enough for retirement.

Under 50% of all American families have a retirement account and the median value of those who have retire-ment accounts is under $60,000.

You’re probably thinking that many of those families are young and haven’t started saving yet. Well, of those families where the head of the house is aged between 55 and 64 (or those who are very near retirement age), only 59% have a retirement account! In that age group, the median value of the account is just over $100,000.

So, over 40% of those heads of families that are within 10 years of retirement don’t have any sort of retirement savings and will rely solely on Social Security. And more than half of those that have a retirement account have less than $100,000 saved!

The reason I’m focused on that age group is to high-light the trouble America is in since our Social Security program is already in serious trouble. That, and I happen to fall in that age group. Stats are just stats until you see yourself in them – that’s when the abstract starts to look a lot more real.

Everyone follows their own path in life and mine

Lance Gaitan graduated from Franklin University in Columbus, OH with a degree in Finance. After graduating and working as an auditor for an insurance administrator as a number of years, attained his securities license and then went to work as a broker for a small firm.

In the mid-1990’s Lance managed the futures trading desk for Piper Jaffray, a large regional brokerage firm based in Minneapolis.

After migrating to Florida in early 2000, Lance founded a futures trading firm, GSV Futures, specializing in retail commodity trading strategies. Lance sold that business in 2006 and joined Harry Dent, Jr. and Rodney Johnson at Dent Research shortly thereafter.

a few of us were talking by the bar and when it was time to pay up,

Charles mysteriously disappeared. Actually, it was no mystery to me!

All joking aside (Charles is a great guy), he’s our “retirement guru”

for good reason. He’s always searching for new income and profit

opportunities AND making sure he protects what he already has.

It’s no secret that we at Dent Research soon expect a brutal bear

market that we believe may last until at least 2023. So, now is not the

time to risk retirement dollars in stocks, and you know you’ll make next

to nothing in CDs or a savings account.

Well, Charles found income opportunities to help you secure your

retirement in what he calls Private Income Funds. A “Private Income

Fund” was designed for wealthy investors to produce a constant

income stream and Charles has adapted them to the needs of the

average person.

These investments are similar to bonds in that they deliver a secure stream of income but they deliver 30% more income than bonds and are also like a stock, in that you can buy and sell them when you want. A Private Income Fund can be filled with many kinds of income-produc-ing investments like municipal bonds, debt, REITs, dividend stocks and more.

Charles will make it even easier for you in his research service… He’ll show you how to boost your income substantially without incur-ring a huge amount of risk. He’ll give you his top Private Income Fund recommendations right away so you can start collecting your monthly income checks. And he’ll deliver weekly alerts with specific buy and sell recommendations for the model portfolio.

So if you’re scrambling to accumulate enough retirement income to last you through retirement and you worry you just won’t have enough, listen to more of what Charles has to stay.

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WHY INCOME MATTERSBy Charles Sizemore, Editor, Peak Income

When I usually tell people the story about how I became a financial analyst, working along-side Harry Dent, one of the most respected economists in the world, I sometimes have a hard time believing it myself.

I grew up about as far from Wall Street as you could get, in a working-class suburb of Dallas, called Garland. If you ever saw the TV show “King of the Hill,” Hank Hill’s hometown was based on mine.

How did I end up going from a quiet bookworm who was terrible at math to a chartered financial analyst with a Masters from the London School of Economics?

None of my family had a financial background, but it’s actually because of my grandfather, a self-taught amateur investor and auto supply store owner in Fort Smith, Arkan-sas, that I’m doing what I am today.

“What if I’m wrong?” he would always ask when think-

ing about his investments. And I distinctly remember him

sitting on his bed scribbling down stock tickers on the TV,

and he looked over things.

Yes, he was looking to add to his income, but also

wanted to be smart about avoiding losses. It’s a philoso-

phy that’s informed my investment strategies to this day,

and one that I think can benefit you too… whether you’re

in retirement, near retirement, or not.

My grandfather never actually retired – he was the

entrepreneurial sort who preferred to die with his boots on

– but the income streams he put together supported my

grandmother for more than a decade after he was gone.

They could have easily continued to do so for decades

more.

My grandfather also had his own version of Peter

Lynch’s mantra of “buying what you know.” Lynch, the

former manager of the Fidelity Magellan fund and the

most successful retail mutual fund manager in history, was

known to troll malls for investment ideas.

Well, in my grandfather’s version of “buying what you know,” he liked to invest in local Arkansas companies. He liked the idea of physically being able to keep an eye on his investments, and he reasoned that he’d be better able to understand a company in his backyard than one hun-dreds or thousands of miles away.

It just so happened that a little retailer you might have heard of – Walmart – was a local Arkansas company, headquartered about an hour and a half from Fort Smith.

My grandfather believed in the company and was an early investor.

And when the shares exploded in the decades that followed, he rode it all the way up.

In Lynch’s words, my grandfather nabbed a “10-bagger,” making over 10 times his money on that investment.

Here’s the thing: Walmart made him a boatload of money, but he had no way of knowing that would happen when he originally bought it. And he certainly wasn’t banking on it supporting him or my grandmother in retirement. Had he lived longer, he might have sold some of it to rebalance or to splurge on some of life’s little indulgences.

But it was never his plan to live off of his capital gains because those can evaporate in a heartbeat.

This is exactly why I write my own income-based newsletter, Peak Income.

Just like my personal approach, my goal is to help you meet that basic baseline of income you need to fund your retirement. Don’t get me wrong, I like scoring big with capital gains as much as the next guy, but first and foremost, I want to help pad your income every month, just like my grandfather taught me.

And this year we have. With 21 recommendations in the portfolio, most of our positions have been consistently near or setting new all-time highs, and generating the type of consistent, automatic income they’re designed to provide us. Not too bad for a conservative income newsletter!

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE AND START REACHING YOUR RETIREMENT GOALS.

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ABOUT THE RICH INVESTORSix days a week, The Rich Investor team keeps you current with every ebb and flow of the market. With coverage of all markets,

both foreign and domestic, we focus on all things trading and how to generate income, including: investment strategies, stocks, economic volatility, risk and more.

In the age of volatility, you need a level head and confidence that your investing strategy will handle the unexpected. Our editors help take the emotions out of investing with regular commentary about the benefits of a well-defined, data-driven, and rules-based investment strategies.

It’s often said in sports that “the best defense is a good offense.” When it comes to investing and stocks, this means focusing on companies that produce floods of cash and that “pay us first.” We make it our mission to hunt down companies using aggressive accounting to bamboozle their investors.

The same we use to identify bad companies with low-quality earnings are turned around to find good, underpriced companies with good management and honest bookkeeping. These are the profitable gems hiding in plain sight, we’ll help you discover.

For those working hard on building their 401(k), retirement planning is entirely personal, but everyone’s strategy for saving should share one common thread: the importance of generating income.

But creating reliable and consistent income streams can be tough, and fleeting, especially as we age, and the markets ebb and flow.

Aside from maxing our 401(k)s, many of us are searching for ways to generate income and cash flow, as retirement approaches. The editors at The Rich Investor deliver unique insight into new income and profit opportunities to provide more peace of mind about heading into those golden years.

Let The Rich Investor be your go-to source to help drown out the noise and constant feed of financial information and commentary. Let us help you make sense of the volatility and unpredictability of the markets along with all the issues that come with investing. Read all about the strategies we recommend… and the ones we don’t in The Rich Investor.

Publisher ...................................................... Shannon SandsSenior Editor ................................................ Harry S. DentEditor ............................................................ Charles Sizemore

The Rich Investor819 N. Charles St. Baltimore, MD 21201USA Toll Free Tel.: (888) 272-1858Contact: http://therichinvestor.com/contactWebsite: www.therichinvestor.com

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