Diary of a future rentier (51)

2017. One more year. And one less year towards my life as a rentier. If I can keep my objective ambitious, that would mean I have about 4 years left to go. I feel like my dream is starting to become tangible.

But before that, I still have a lot to do (or rather to invest), and the current level of the stock market is not really helping me to move forward. At the moment I am rather in a phase where I am selling certain stocks that have exhausted their dividend appreciation potential. In addition, because of stock valuations, my purchases are increasingly rare. This means that not only am I depriving myself of certain income by selling, but also that I cannot buy other dividend income. It is therefore difficult in this situation to make progress on the path that remains for me.

I could certainly not sell and continue to buy, without asking myself too many questions. But my past experiences have taught me that the stock market can turn around very quickly, especially when it is at such levels. So I prefer to play it safe, invest sparingly, and keep some cash aside to take advantage of it when the time comes.

Along the same lines, I could also have not invested part of my savings in the Trading Auto Signal, which does not pay a high return on purchase cost today and which has difficulty competing with a purely "long" oriented approach when the market is breaking records after records. But here too I prefer to play it safe, even if it means giving up some gains today, because I know that I will find it when the market turns around, or even if it simply becomes "flat". I also know that the return on purchase cost of Trading Auto Signal, although derisory today, will increase significantly in the coming years.

The question is: will the market allow me to invest fast enough to maintain my goal? It's impossible to answer that without being able to predict the future. All I can do at this point is be ready when it happens...