The race is on—it’s just a few more laps ‘til we catch that rabbit, right?

Earlier tonight my friend Tom (who I met this past January on the Early Retirement Forum) emailed me and asked if I was down. Touched, I replied I was doing okay and asked how he was doing in return. He said “Haha! No, I mean your portfolio! I’m down over 60K! I looked at your blog, aren’t you following the news??”

I should’ve known better, these ER guys are all about the numbers. Yes, yes I know—China’s economy is in the red, OPEC is flooding the globe with cheap oil and the Feds are rubbing their hands together & promising to raise interest rates any day now. Some of those so-called market experts predict that US stocks will rally, others say we’ve been on the gravy train far too long, so get ready for a steep decline and a 2 year bear market.

Darn it, I hate all of it. 2015 has been a crappy year for stocks & bonds, and I’m worn out worrying about it. When I left my job 8 months ago (is that all it’s been? It seems longer) I plugged all my dollars & sense into Mint.com’s retirement tool, said I wanted so-and-so dollars a year to live on (adjusted yearly for inflation) and wouldn’t start making withdrawals until January 2016. I got back this:

ADDITIONAL INVESTMENTS NEEDED IN YOUR PORTFOLIO TO REACH GOAL: $15,000
ESTIMATED DATE YOU WILL REACH YOUR GOAL: JULY 02 2015
YOU ARE 6 MONTHS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

Woo-hoo! That was in December, right after Christmas. I had the whole year ahead to earn just 15K in my portfolio, and Minty predicted I’d have it in 6 months. Alas, it was not to be: here’s how it looked in July.

ADDITIONAL INVESTMENTS NEEDED IN YOUR PORTFOLIO TO REACH GOAL: $17,500
ESTIMATED DATE YOU WILL REACH YOUR GOAL: MAR 10 2016
YOU ARE 3 MONTHS BEHIND SCHEDULE

Rats! But the worst was yet to come. Here’s what it said August 28, after that six-day market tumble and 2 day hint of recovery:

ADDITIONAL INVESTMENTS NEEDED IN YOUR PORTFOLIO TO REACH GOAL: $45,600
ESTIMATED DATE YOU WILL REACH YOUR GOAL: JAN 15 2017
YOU ARE 1 YEAR BEHIND SCHEDULE

Gulp… that estimated date keeps going the wrong way. Most of us in the market are affected of course, but when you’re counting on this to LIVE on come 2016, and it’s telling you to wait until 2017, things are off to an uncertain start. Doggone it, that rabbit was so close a few months ago too! I’m not throwing in the towel just yet, here’s how I see the final laps in this race:

ApacheDug’s Market Predictions for the Final Round of 2015

September (historically the worst month of the year for Wall Street) is going to start out on a down note, why break with tradition? Then the Feds will listen to Suze Orman’s pleas not to hike interest rates, sending global & domestic markets into an orgasmic delirium 

October & November will see the markets climb even higher—quick, we gotta make up for that mess we got ourselves into back in August!

In December the economy is up, China’s frozen over and the Feds come out of hiding & announce a small rate hike—but no one is listening! It’s the Holiday Season, we’ve recovered our losses and are up 4-5%

AND I AM GOING TO BE WEARING THAT RABBIT.