No one will agree that after 7 years you don’t need to save for retirement if you have saved $5,000 per year for 7 years.
You should have near $100,000 if you invested in the best version of the Stars buy and hold strategy.
At that point you have plenty to provide millions for retirement. Now you will probably continue to save for other things you want.
How does Stars make this possible? Stars uses the volatile TQQQ ETF to annually rebalance against the less volatile SPY ETF. Most investors have many holdings so that they are diversified. Stars only holds the same two ETFs forever. These ETFs hold 500 stocks but are heavily weighted to the best performers. The typical investor holds positions on average for 6 months. The combination of market timing and investment selection produce performance that is about 5% per year below the S&P.
Stars on average earns twice the S&P. Stars high returns after a couple years result in an accuracy of 100% because sales from rebalancing are at much higher prices than the purchase price. In theory this accuracy implies zero risk. Stars requires no knowledge of market direction because it is a buy and hold strategy. Like Berkshire Hathaway Stars does have drawdown although it is higher.
Drawdown caused by the volatility of TQQQ is seen as a non starter by most financial advisors. Volatility is what allows performance greater than the S&P. The financial services has few strategies or investments that outperform the S&P.
The Stars model has 8 versions and 6 variations that allow the investor to create their strategy that uses their ideas and ideas of Stars to meet their risk tolerance. Drawdown in the long run is not a problem because Stars outperforms the S&P by a factor of 17 over 26 years whereas the average investor underperforms the S&P by 5% per year.