The 2% Retirement
The 2% Retirement
More than a decade ago, we conducted an informal — albeit fascinating — survey of our readership.
It was straightforward: When it comes to retirement, “What’s your number?”
Not the total retirement savings you want to live comfortably, but to live your dream -- where you wouldn't have to worry about a budget for meals out, or golf or concerts or travel.
We got over 3,000 responses in the space of 48 hours.
The average number — $4.512 million.
To be clear, that’s in 2013 dollars. Adjust for inflation and we’re talking nearly $6.1 million now.
Also to be clear, that was the average — and the average was pulled higher by a few outliers who dreamed really big. "$100 million," said one, "includes giving away half as well as buying a house with ocean views, traveling first-class, driving sporty high-priced cars and other rich toys.”
Compared with the $4.512 million average, the median response we got — half of the responses were higher, half lower — was $2 million. In 2024 dollars, that’s $2.7 million.
A more formal and recent survey by Charles Schwab asked Americans what kind of net worth meets the definition of “rich.”
Schwab conveniently broke it down by generations…
- Boomers: $2.8 million
- Gen X: $2.7 million
- Millennials: $2.2 million
- Gen Z: $1.2 million.
(Sheesh, what’s with the low expectations of the 27-and-under set?)
Note that the boomer and Xer definition lines up very nicely with the inflation-adjusted average of $2.7 million from our survey.
As it happens, by one measure a net worth of $2.7 million puts you in the top 2% of the country.
If you’re not in the top 2% — for that matter, if you’re nowhere near there — don’t despair.
Even if you’re done all “the right things” — kept out of debt, lived below your means, salted away a hefty chunk of your paycheck in a retirement plan — $2.7 million might still seem out of reach.
There’s a Wall Street renegade who came on our radar at Paradigm Press earlier this year — we’ve taken to calling him “The Maverick” — who says there’s a reason for that.
It’s painfully simple. The stock market rises an average 10% a year (dividends included).
That’s just not enough to move the needle — certainly not in the inflationary 2020s, and inflation probably won’t be back to “normal” pre-pandemic levels for several more years.
Against those odds, simply “beating the market” isn’t enough to get to a dream retirement — or even a comfortable one.
So imagine for a moment if instead of waiting decades to build real wealth, you could do it in a fraction of the time.
Better yet, imagine doing it without diving into the options markets and staying glued to a screen all day.
“The Maverick” tells us that’s the power behind an obscure chart pattern that was key to every one of the top 10 performing stocks of 2024 — as well as many of the top performers in previous years.
We talked about some of 2024’s standouts last week — Nvidia’s 200% gain, Palantir’s 270% and Vistra Corp.’s 320%.
Imagine racking up returns like these over and over. And again, you’re not doing it with options. You’re not even doing it with tiny, high-risk lottery-ticket stocks no one’s ever heard of. You’re doing it with well-known S&P 500 companies.
Armed with a strategy geared to this unusual chart pattern, The Maverick’s hedge fund beat the market by 3-to-1 between 2001–2011 — a period including the dot-com bust and the global financial crisis.
More recently, he guided his readers to stellar gains coming out of the COVID crash in 2020. One day after the market hit bottom, he and his team identified a group of stocks set to explode. All of them registered double- and triple-digit gains within 12 months.
Tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. EDT you’ll have a chance to meet The Maverick — and he’ll show you this chart pattern in action. He’ll show you why the next 60 days are setting up the most extraordinary opportunity in years.
You’ll also learn how to get in on the best performers of 2025 now so they can move you closer to a “2% retirement.” He’ll even give you two free picks — one stock to buy and one to avoid.
I know the timing of this exclusive online briefing might not be the most convenient, what with the holidays coming up. But we urge you to juggle your schedule to make it happen. We promise it’ll be worth your while.
Sign up here to reserve your spot. We’ll email you everything you’ll need to know so you’ll be ready for tomorrow morning.
All Hail Scott Bessent! (But Don’t Forget About WWIII)
As far as Mr. Market is concerned, World War III was so last week. All of last week’s jitters have been dispelled by Donald Trump’s pick for treasury secretary.
After the market closed on Friday, Trump nominated hedge fund manager Scott Bessent.
“Right now, the markets are of the belief that Bessent will be the one that can get the U.S. economic growth back to 3%,” says our old friend Chuck Butler at his Daily Pfennig e-letter.
Which seems like an odd expectation given that GDP growth during Trump’s first term never hit 3%. Indeed since 2000, annual GDP growth has been 3% or greater in only three years — 2004, 2005 and the COVID rebound in 2021.
No matter: The S&P 500 is up a half percent as we write and back within three points of the 6,000 mark. The Nasdaq is also up a half percent, back over 19,000.
The Dow is in record territory, up 1% to nearly 44,700. And the small-cap Russell 2000 is blasting 2.2% higher to 2,460 — finally eclipsing its late-2021 record.
The jitters in the bond market are also easing, sending Treasury yields down big-time — the 10-year note back below 4.3% for the first time since Election Day. Apparently not only is Bessent going to get us back to 3% economic growth, he’s also going to shrink the annual budget deficit to 3% of GDP! (Right now, it’s north of 6% — an unprecedented level outside of war, recession or pandemic.)
So more about Bessent…
Trump’s first treasury secretary was a Goldman Sachs guy. His next one comes from the George Soros clique. Can’t you just feel the swamp water draining?
“‘Sigh of relief’: Wall Street Welcomes Donald Trump’s Pick of Scott Bessent for Treasury Secretary,” says the Financial Times.
If The Wall Street Journal is to be believed, Trump "had been focused on how the markets would react to his pick." Bessent “would be seen by analysts as a steadying force in his administration.”
So yeah, Bessent worked at Soros Fund Management from 1991–2000 — returning to serve as chief investment officer from 2011–2015.
We find zero evidence to suggest he’s going to do anything other than business as usual. The Washington Post interviewed Jason Furman, who ran the White House Council of Economic Advisers during Barack Obama’s second term. “I think Scott Bessent would be a completely credible choice for treasury secretary,” Furman says — “well within the mainstream of past treasury secretaries.”
[On the other hand, Paradigm’s recovering investment banker Sean Ring is more sanguine about Bessent’s nomination, and I encourage you to hear him out in today’s Rude Awakening.]
Ukraine: Trump and Biden “Hand in Glove”
Meanwhile, the commodity complex is selling off hard because the world did not blow up over the weekend.
On Friday we told you how gold and oil were both being bid up. Traders were reluctant to be “short” those commodities — betting on a price decline — going into a weekend when the markets were closed and anything could happen.
But with no major escalations in either Eastern Europe or the Middle East — heck, Israel might be on the verge of a ceasefire with Hezbollah — gold has sunk a sickening $85 to $2,631. Silver is down well over a buck to $30.10. Crude is down over two bucks to $69.19.
And in the crypto space, Bitcoin’s run toward six figures has hit a wall — at last check it’s barely over $96,000.
That said, there’s still ample cause for concern this week.
Begin with Trump’s incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz talking about continuity between the Trump and Biden policies on Ukraine — only days after Biden authorized the firing of NATO missiles into Russian territory for the first time in history.
Eek. It’s not for nothing our own Jim Rickards says on Xwitter this morning that Waltz is “the latest in a long line of incompetents.”
Speaking of which, Trump just named Waltz’s deputy at the National Security Council…
Oh, and there was another alarming Ukraine revelation we got on the Sunday talk shows…
Gee, and we were told Ukraine was all about “democracy” versus “autocracy”...
Staying with the subject of Trump appointees…
“The Female Fauci” Inspires a Biotech Bounce
Biotech stocks are soaring today — the XBI ETF up 2.6% at last check — as Trump’s nominee for surgeon general is being roundly roasted as “the female Fauci.”
Yeah, that’s every bit as alarming as it sounds…
Life comes at you fast: It was only a week ago Friday when XBI sold off 3% — and the MRNA jab-makers Pfizer and Moderna sold off 5% — because Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services.
XBI is now trading where it was before the RFK announcement — a perfect illustration of “Knuckman’s law,” as coined by Alan Knuckman, our eyes and ears at the Chicago options exchanges.
Avoid knee-jerk reactions to what Trump says or does, says Alan. Give it at least 48 hours for the market reaction to shake out.
With RFK Jr. potentially working at cross-purposes with other Trump appointees, what are the investment implications?
Well, one thing is for certain: Even if RFK’s influence proves to be a drag on Big Pharma, smaller biotechs stand to thrive.
“Rooting out Big Pharma corruption at the FDA is going to be nothing but good for small biotechs that don’t have the political or lobbying muscle to influence FDA decisions,” says Paradigm’s tech-and-biotech specialist Ray Blanco.
“Moreover, Trump has a track record at this point. Biotech soared under his first term as approvals were streamlined and reached record numbers.
“Stocks to avoid, however, probably include Big Pharma names, as well as vaccine plays — with the exception of immunotherapy companies developing vaccines for conditions like cancer and serious autoimmune diseases.”
Mailbag: Foreign Aid, Banana Art
Friday’s edition inspires the following reader take on foreign aid and the national debt…
“On Friday's 5, you stated that U.S. support for Israel since the 10/7 attacks has risen to $22.76 billion.
“I can't get my head around numbers like that unless I divide federal expenditures by 350 million, roughly the number of people in the U.S., and then multiply by four, the number of people in my family.
“So our support for Israel is about $65 per American and $260 for my household.
“And if you divide U.S. debt by the same 350 million, you get a per capita figure of... oh, holy %!$#!”
Dave responds: Yeah, $36 trillion divided by 350 million is $102,857.14.
“The banana 'art' is really very scary,” writes another reader after Friday’s edition. “How far can stupidity or slavish behavior go?”
But that wasn’t the main reason the reader wrote in. “I wanted however to say:
You guys are really amazing.
“I am very new to any investing, I have very little time even to look at all your info, but the little bits of info I picked randomly
“I made huge gains on every one of your tips that I selected: I made since August gains from 15–100% on every pick I got from you.
“Happy Thanksgiving to Paradigm!”
Dave: Wow, how gratifying to hear. Thank you for the reminder that the work we do makes a difference — and Happy Thanksgiving to you as well!
Best regards,
Dave Gonigam
Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets
