Six stories this week, and every one of them lands on the same reader — the person somewhere in their mid-50s with the biggest balance they’ve ever had and the least time to rebuild it.
Gold down 25%. Oil up 9.42% in a day. An exchange with no tenants. A $66 billion company marked to $40 billion. The 10-year at 4.610%. None of it is a catastrophe. All of it is a reminder that the ten years before retirement are the years when “it’ll come back” stops being a strategy and starts being a hope.
This is not a trade. It’s a checklist. If you’re inside ten years of your date, know three things to the dollar: what your actual cushion is (not what you assume it is), which sleeve pays your first five years of income, and what your fee drag costs you every year.
SGOV reinforced. Dividends (CVX, XOM, with PNC on the candidate list) doing the boring work. And the whole thing built so no single bad sleeve rewrites your retirement date. This is the fifteen-minute conversation, and it’s free.
No trade — a checklist. Inside ten years of your date, three numbers matter: your actual cushion, the sleeve that pays your first five years of income, and your fee drag to the dollar. SGOV reinforced; dividends (CVX, XOM, PNC on the candidate list) doing the boring work; the equity book sized so a 25% drawdown in any one sleeve is survivable — because it always happens to the sleeve you least expected. Bring your statement; the fee audit alone usually pays for the call.