It’s taken some time but I finally finished it. My FREE Report on “What if You Retired in 2000?” is my personal attempt to try and found out how a $1M nest egg would have performed under four different scenarios from 2000 to 2007.

It taught me a lot about how money works in retirement. I was shocked at how hard it was to get back money lost in the Dotcom crash whilst taking a pension.

The Report includes my detailed analysis of four scenarios and includes the spreadsheets from which the report is draw. The spreadsheet can be downloaded and used by Baby Boomers to learn for themselves the lesson of avoiding large losses in retirement as well as several other useful lessons.

What I believe makes my report different is it is from a Baby Boomer perspective and includes real S&P 500 Market returns from 2000 to 2007 as well as real inflation rates. The results using these real figures are compared to the financial industry favorites of long term average market returns and assumed inflation rates.

The results may shock you. But I would prefer that you use it as a spur to action to get control of your nest egg. (click on the picture to download the FREE Report)

The Wealth Management industry use a well known cliche “If you fail to plan, you can plan to fail” to help try and sell their investment products. The vultures are circling because figures show 77 Million Baby Boomers control around $40 Billion. Its too good to miss. Here is a quote from an article on Insurance Journals web site. Read the rest of this entry »

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My eBook "What Every Baby Boomer Should Know about Protecting Their Nest Egg in Retirement" is now available. This eBook is the result of several months research into how I could protect my Nest Egg now I am in semi-retirement. It is packed with information which is explained without using high level finance jargon. In fact it is not an investment book at all. I’m not qualified to offer investment advice. It aims to inform you about all things other than stock market losses, inflation and taxes that can "eat" your Nest Egg in Retirement over the long term.

It was after becoming frustrated with my Financial Advisers and their seeming disregard to understand that the rules of investing change when someone starts to draw down their Nest Egg. Just some of the things include:

The number one thing in Retirement is to minimize the losses NOT maximise the gains.

High Fees of 1%-3% will significantly reduce a Nest Egg over the Long Term.

Reverse Dollar-Cost-Averaging works against Baby Boomers in Retirement.

Using Average Returns to predict Nest Egg survival is dangerous and could send you broke.

Losing Capital is far more dangerous to a Retiree than someone still in the work-force. This fact appears to be lost on many in the financial planning industry.

Therefore it is vital that Baby Boomers actively take control of their Nest Egg when in Retirement.

The eBook offers insight into the many ways a Nest Egg can be taken from a Baby Boomer before their very eyes  - and it’s all legal.

The eBook is aimed at first alarming Baby Boomers with the information, and then arming them to take control of their Nest Egg. It does not advocate going it alone necessarily, but rather how to take charge of a meeting with a financial planner and make sure they are working to protect your Nest Egg when you are in retirement.

"What Every Baby Boomer Should Know about Protecting Their Nest Egg in Retirement" is available for purchase and immediate download at:

 Protect Your Nest Egg in Retirement

A Blog can also be located at www.protectyournestegginretirement.com where any comments are most welcome.

If you are a Baby Boomer AND in or near retirement your Financial Advisor should be advising you on how to protect your Nest Egg in Retirement. If they are not actively working with you to control your Nest Egg you could be in serious trouble.

With the financial markets in turmoil and the stock markets tumbling, if your your Nest Egg is in the Stock Market it is likely to be down 20% or more. Do you understand that if you are drawing a pension from your Nest Egg, then being down 20% or more is critical to the long term survivability of your Nest Egg.

Craig L. Israelsen, Ph.D. is an associate professor at Brigham Young University. In his article The Math of Recovery in Retirement Portfolios he states “The Primary Goal of a Retirement Portfolio is very simple; avoid large losses.” If your financial advisor isn’t telling you this, there is a problem. If you suffer large losses just as you start taking a pension from your Nest Egg you could be in serious trouble. This article shows you just how much trouble. I recommend you read the article in full.

10 Questions you should ask your financial advisor:

Read the rest of this entry »

Baby Boomers, unless you live under a rock you will be well aware there is stock market turmoil and the possibility of your Nest Egg being a lot smaller for your retirement. You need to Protect Your Nest Egg Now.

This article is not intended to alarm you but to arm you. You see most Baby Boomers don’t understand how their Nest Egg is managed. In fact most find the whole subject totally boring.

It’s a fact people spend more time planning which restaurant to go to rather than planning their retirement. But what’s worse is they spend no time planning how to protect their Nest Egg against a major loss.

Over time Stock markets have always recovered. More recently it seems these recoveries have been quicker, giving us a false sense of security. If you were in the work force and accumulating your Nest Egg it was easy to sit tight and let the market take care of itself. But if you are in Retirement the whole situation changes dramatically.

For a start you might no longer be earning any income and so will not be contributing to your Nest Egg. Plus if you have no other source of income you will be drawing your income from your Nest Egg. If you take just 4%, which is suggested by many experts, this is equivalent to the stock market dropping by 4% on top of any real stock market drop.

So you have the worst of situations. Your Nest Egg is reducing in value and you are taking money out. Talk about punching a guy when he is down!

Read the rest of this entry »

This 13 page FREE Report includes the first few pages of the eBook including the Table of Contents. It contains information many Baby Boomers have never considered before and is vital information if you want to protect your nest egg whilst in retirement. (Click on the Book to open it in Adobe Reader)

It is when we are in retirement our nest eggs are most vulnerable because we may no longer have a source of income to replenish it should it suffer large losses as with the current “Sub-Prime” situation. That in itself is a major problem but what exacerbates it is if we take a pension when our nest egg has suffered losses. For example taking a pension of 4% can be considered similar to the Stock Market dropping by a further 4%. Either way there is 4% less funds to invest to grow or maintain your nest egg.

But the problem doesn’t stop there. There are several other issues that can eat your nest egg whether the Stock market is going up or down. These are the things that can really damage your nest egg over the long term.

I hope you find the information in the FREE Report as revealing as I have and, I hope it will spur you on to protect your nest egg now.

The full eBook is ready and will be available on 1st April 2008 - April Fools Day ;0)

Thanks for dropping by and taking a look at my blog. As the title suggests it will be all about how to protect your nest egg in retirement.

I’m not talking about all the financial wizardry spoken of by the Wealth Management industry. I’m talking about how your nest egg can disappear over time through things that have nothing to do with the Stock Market. It is my own experience that has motivated me to create this blog and to write an eBook based on my research.

Why should you listen to me? That’s a good question and I hope I can answer it for you on this Blog over time and with my eBook.

First I am in semi-retirement and so my income has been reduced considerably. I do have enough of a nest egg for a reasonably comfortable retirement. At least that is what I thought. I have done my own investing for the last 25 years until last year when I decided to hand it all over to a financial planner via a WRAP account and Mutual Funds. Whilst I was nervous I liked my financial planner and trusted him so in November 2007 I handed over my nest egg to my chosen wealth management team.

I wasn’t looking to make a “killing” I told my planner. I was happy to protect my capital and make 8-10% if I could. This was very conservative I was told. It was strange at first but I wanted to spend my time doing other things. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi Baby Boomers,

Let me introduce myself ….

I will be turning 60 this year and I am semi-retired. So I qualify as a Baby Boomer and am writing this blog for Baby Boomers.

Until recently I managed my own Superannuation Fund. Whilst I was doing okay, it was taking a lot of my time. So in November 2007 I decided to hand over my Nest Egg to a Wealth Manager. My super funds were then installed in a WRAP Account with a large Fund Manager and the money invested in several Mutual Funds.

After June 2007 I realized the returns were far worse than the returns I was getting managing it myself. I queried the poor performance and was told I should wait 5-7 years before deciding whether my investments were successful or not.

I pointed out that since I had retired and was now drawing a pension from my super fund, I could not wait 5-7 years to find out the investment returns were not there. I said with virtually no income from other sources, I have no way to replenish any losses required to maintain the capital, so that in good years it will give me a good return.

No matter what I said or did I could not convince my chosen wealth managers that there was a problem.

Whilst trying to convince them there was a problem, I accumulated a large amount of information about what can seriously erode my nest egg and that has nothing to do with the Stock Market, Inflation or Taxes. What is more important these things eat away at the nest egg regardless of the Stock Market, Inflation or Taxes.

It was then I realized too, just how much it was costing me in Fees having them manage my Superannuation Fund.

I have detailed my trading and investing experience below if you want to read more about me. The main thing I discovered from trading and investing since 1995 was the importance of money management. Protecting your capital and minimizing losses is paramount to your long term survival when trading. It is no different when managing a Nest Egg in retirement. I am well qualified to talk about protecting capital and minimizing losses because I have been doing it for over 10 years.

This Blog is dedicated to putting all this information in one place for easy retrieval and understanding. It is my hope that other Baby Boomers will also realize the dangers to their nest egg and take appropriate action to protect it.

Please Note: I am NOT a financial adviser and do not offer any financial advice. I only provide information which you need to discuss with your trusted financial advisers before acting on it. I may tell you what I am doing with my investments, or what I might be doing, but you need to make your own decisions in concert with your trusted financial adviser.

If you wish to contact me please use the form on the Contact Me page.

Thank you

David J. Bates

More in Brief …. Covering my Futures, Stocks and CFD Trading and Investing

The Futures Market taught me very quickly about good Money Management

In 1995 I traded the Futures Markets. I lasted about 12 months and traded every day. Much of the trading was blind. By this I mean I had to get my trades to the broker several hours before trading began because they would forward them to their US brokers for execution. Whilst I did not come out ahead I did learn a lot about money management, stop losses and sticking to my trading plan.

I built my own Trading and Investing Systems

Also in 1995 I began developing my own trading systems using Metastock. I was quite successful at stock trading and actually made money. I was out of the market most of 2000-2002 and only re-entered in March 2003 when I believed the trend was up once again. I exited the markets in December 2004 because too many of my stop losses were triggered and I thought I should sit on the side lines for a while. I managed a 34% annual return from March 2003 to December 2005. But I could not get back in using my tight stop losses and get a profit buffer before a retracement in the market occurred. So I sat on the side lines with most of my nest egg until I stupidly gave it to a WRAP/Mutual Fund Manager to manager for me just as I went into semi-retirement.

I made a mistake handing all my Nest Egg over to Wealth Managers

Luckily I made the decision to redeem my nest egg in total from the WRAP account in November 2007 and have it sitting in cash. In Australia I can get a return of about 7.5% in a cash account or 8.3% on term deposit. I have chosen to split my nest egg across several banks just in case there are sub-prime problems lurking in the Aussie Banks they have not admitted to yet. We should know soon ;0)

Excellent Money Management Skills kept me Safe whilst doing highly leveraged trading

I have also traded CFDs with CMC for about 18 months. At times I was leveraged up to $300,000.00 with 1-3% margin. Ouch!. I was actually making good profits initially, but could not keep it. This is normal when trying to learn this type of trading. My money management skills helped me minimize my losses but they slowly mounted up and I decided whilst I was good at developing and following a system, I just did not have that extra skill to become successful. I was also slowing down in my “real job” and as my income reduced from it I stopped CFD trading.

My experience trading made me realize my Wealth Mangers will not protect my Nest Egg

I’ve included this information here so you may know I have some experience trading and investing on my own behalf and have enough experience to know when I am being fed a line by the WRAP/Mutual Fund Managers. This blog is aimed at helping other baby bloomers get control of their nest eggs. There will be a financial feeding frenzy if Baby Boomers don’t take control of their nest eggs.

I am putting in place a low maintenance Nest Egg Investment Strategy which I will write about on this Blog

I have a plan to put some of my nest egg in the market once the volatility settles down. I will be using stop losses though and not hope. Daily moves of 3% in the stock market may mean I will be in cash for a little longer. In retirement being overly cautious in these markets is common sense. I will be setting up my Greg Heiple’s Teeter Totter and using Jim Otar’s retirement calculator software.

If you have any questions about my blog, the posts or my About page please contact me using my contact page form.