The Two Biggest Moneymaking Decisions You'll Ever Have to Make

[Editor's Note: This insider's look at how to secure a comfortable retirement was first published in Shah Gilani's Wall Street Insights & Indictments. To get all of Gilani's insights as soon as they are published, click here.]

Listen folks, I hate to tell you this but your chance for a comfortable retirement is falling fast!

Of course, we already know pension plans have been raided, depleted, and "financially engineered" - against the laws that were supposed to protect you.

And if you think you're protected because you're a union worker, or municipal worker, or in some other job that you figured you'd put up with because you could retire well... well, those "protection" plans are all under attack, too.

Your benefits are being bargained away... and so are your cost of living increases and so are all the other promises you were made.

You need to wake up to your worst nightmare.

Of course, your 401(k) was invented to replace pension plans... but have you really looked at how it's doing? I mean really calculated how you're going to retire on it?

The Center for Retirement Research said the typical 401(k) in the United States has about $120,000 in it. Do you even have that much?

They also calculated that to retire comfortably you need 10 times what your retirement year's salary was in savings. How much are you making now? Are you going to save 10 times that?

And as far as your employer matching your 401(k) to help you amass that retirement stockpile, forget it.

Newsflash: Companies aren't required to match anything. They only do it to entice employees to come on board or stay. That is until it costs them too much. After the 2008 crisis, 20% of public companies suspended, delayed, or stopped matching contributions altogether. This is a travesty for the average worker.

You see, your comfortable retirement is a long way off in the best of circumstances.

Today, just to have a decent retirement pot, you'd have to make 6% a year, compounded, every year. Are you making that every year on your investments?

No. Especially if you're moving more money into fixed income at these piddling interest rates. Two percent a year on a 10-year savings bond, really? Good luck with that.

Here's the thing:

Anyone can learn how to build wealth... And anyone can learn how to make investments that grow.

I'm going to teach you how right here.

You see, you just have to slice it right. You have to allocate funds to play both sides of the markets - whether it's stocks, bonds, precious metals, commodities, or what have you.

Starting today, and continuing on, I'm going to use our Wall Street Insights & Indictments space to give vital insights on mastering the markets.

I can show you how to play the globe's biggest asset classes and make our money grow exponentially faster than your piddling 401(k) can.

You'll have the benefit of my more than 30 years of experience and success in the palm of your hand. You will be the master of your own destiny.

The great thing about investing the way I do is that you can make money consistently - just by being a simpleton.

Everyone loves to complicate things, which is detrimental to your financial health, especially when it comes to investing.

There's so much news and data, so many opinions about events and data points, so many financial publications, so many shows, so many stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, futures, options, derivatives, so many opposing points of view about everything, it's enough to make your head explode - and your investing comfort level implode.

But I quickly distanced myself from all the noise that distracted me from being a successful trader.

Here's what I learned:

If you want to make money in the markets, there are only two decisions that matter, only two decisions that you ever have to make.

They are: Buy it? Or sell it? That's it, it is just that simple.

Look, I've made money in the markets every year for some 30 years. For me and for you, making money has to do with only those two decisions. Personally, I don't put a lot of meaning on either of them.

If I buy and I'm wrong, I made a bad decision. I fix that by making another decision.

But what we're going to do here each week is learn how to make good decisions based on the information we have at our disposal.

Stay tuned.

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About the Author

Shah Gilani boasts a financial pedigree unlike any other. He ran his first hedge fund in 1982 from his seat on the floor of the Chicago Board of Options Exchange. When options on the Standard & Poor's 100 began trading on March 11, 1983, Shah worked in "the pit" as a market maker.

The work he did laid the foundation for what would later become the VIX - to this day one of the most widely used indicators worldwide. After leaving Chicago to run the futures and options division of the British banking giant Lloyd's TSB, Shah moved up to Roosevelt & Cross Inc., an old-line New York boutique firm. There he originated and ran a packaged fixed-income trading desk, and established that company's "listed" and OTC trading desks.

Shah founded a second hedge fund in 1999, which he ran until 2003.

Shah's vast network of contacts includes the biggest players on Wall Street and in international finance. These contacts give him the real story - when others only get what the investment banks want them to see.

Today, as editor of Hyperdrive Portfolio, Shah presents his legion of subscribers with massive profit opportunities that result from paradigm shifts in the way we work, play, and live.

Shah is a frequent guest on CNBC, Forbes, and MarketWatch, and you can catch him every week on Fox Business's Varney & Co.

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