Page 24 - Exposed Final

The stock market moves in cycles, and you are rolling the dice to guess the

cycle the market will be in when you retire. Imagine the stock market being

flat for 15 years and you are trying to grow your money or worse trying to

create income from your stock market-based accounts. How can you plan?

You can't!

Chasing growth might work for a moment, but the eventual decline of

whatever investment asset you are pursuing usually takes back all profit,

and often times, it also consumes large portions of your principal.

Think about it. How many people do you personally know who made a

fortune during the tech bubble?

I saw many paper gains during that period, but most of the paper gains

were wiped out during the tech wreck in the early 2000s.

What about real estate? Whom do you personally know that made a

fortune flipping houses during the housing market bubble? Again, I saw

many paper gains (equity), and many people made money early in the

cycle only to give it all back during the credit crisis. To this day, many

people remain upside down in their homes or were forced to short sale their

properties. Very few walked away with a pile of cash.

Just think, from 2003-2007, the stock market's average rate of return was

13.08% -- great paper gains, but the profit and some of the principal were
lost during the crash of 2008 when the market lost almost 37%.