Pilots

The 401k Autopilot® Program

The 401k Autopilot® Program is the solution to creating a secure future for your family in a very insecure airline world. It instantly takes the burden of managing money off your shoulders and puts your account on a Worry-Free Flight Path™. Offered exclusively to professional airline pilots with Delta, Federal Express and US Airways. If you are a pilot with another airline, please contact us about offering the 401k Autopilot® Program to your pilot group.

Advantages & Benefits of the 401k Autopilot® Program

The 401k Autopilot® Program goes far beyond simply automating the growth and safety of your 401k account. The Autopilot® immediately takes the burden of caring for your 401k off your shoulders and can deliver the result you need – being ready to retire with the money you will need.

After many conversations with pilots, here is a summary of the rich depth of advantages and benefits that can be yours as a member of the 401k Autopilot® Program.

As you read through this list of benefits, ask yourself how many of these could transform your investing and your life.

1. Greater confidence in your future. Peace of mind. Less uncertainty

Whether you’re flying, in a crew hotel, or fighting engine fires and failures in the simulator, the single largest retirement asset you own is being watched very closely – managed every day the market is open – by a team of professionals.

Someday, you will retire. You will begin withdrawing from your retirement savings. The value of those savings at retirement will determine your future standard of living. That is your time and destination. What remains undecided is exactly what the future value will be and your future standard of living. The Autopilot can’t guarantee a future value of your investments. It can give you confidence about your future as it keeps you on the correct flight path toward retirement.

2. Better odds of a successful outcome – a very comfortable retirement for yourself and your family

There’s no chance we could out-fly you – there’s even less chance you’ll out-invest us. Maybe we could handle an aircraft with you guiding us over the shoulder, as long as the weather is clear. You probably do fine investing in “sunny” markets with some general guidance. You sure don’t want us in the Captain’s chair when conditions get ugly. You also don’t want you in the “Money Manager’s Chair” when the markets get nasty. Bad markets strip years of gains out of your account so fast you’ll feel like you’re riding the scrambler at a carnival. The odds are better for a great result for both of us when we each focus on the chair we’ve mastered. Most pilots find their time and energy is fully taken up already by a very demanding profession and a family. They are not looking for another full-time job.

3. Immediately. Instantly. Done For You Automatically

By choosing the 401k Autopilot® Program, you immediately put a team of experts on your side, watching out for your interests. All our experience? Instantly yours.

The 401k Autopilot® Program immediately takes the burden of decision-making and action from your shoulders and puts you on the correct flight path.

All the learning curve to successful investing? Done. Hundreds of thousands of dollars to get educated, trained, and equipped? Checks already written and cashed. All there to get you prepared for future retirement. All done for you automatically.

4. Your life simplified – especially when you’re on trips

By having one less thing to constantly worry about. You know the pilot that runs off his aircraft  at every stop to check the market? Sometimes right there in the jetway, every leg, every day? Why? We’ll lift that burden immediately from your shoulders – it’s all we do full-time. You have enough stress already with your career. You don’t need a second job keeping up with the markets.

5. The secret to unemotional investing

Three out of four magazines say one thing about the market and the fourth has some expert saying just the opposite. They all sound so reasonable. Which do you believe? Clearly, they are not all right. What do you do? Without clear direction, you may find you are immobilized by the differing opinions – yet you still have to make investment decisions. Your future depends on it.

Do you find yourself unclear as to how to take action when it’s required? Are you reluctant to invest at the bottom, just when you should be buying into the market? Are you unable to sell at the top, just when you should be taking some money off the table? Do you know if we’re at a market top or bottom? You may be unable to pull the trigger – but someone has to make investment decisions. Your time may be better spent protecting your passengers and flight crew, guiding your aircraft and enjoying your family. To us, these decisions are just another day working for our clients. In the same way we put flying the jet into your hands, we handle the markets for our clients.

6. The 401k Autopilot® Program immediately takes the burden of decision-making and action from your shoulders and puts your retirement on the correct flight path

Instantly, you’ll be following our objective and successful investment discipline. Your only job will be to hire us, designate which model portfolio you want to have and then to relax and watch us do our thing. You’ll still be able to see your account 24/7 on the web, as always.

7. How to avoid costly mistakes that can create huge losses in your 401k

Hard to even put a price tag on something this basic to your future retirement. We’ve personally talked with hundreds of pilots by phone – last count, more than +600 (not even counting email) – and we hear stories of things they did themselves that lost more than half
their account value in a year. But it wasn’t just half the value – they lost years worth of contributions they’ll never have time to make again.

All these mistakes could have been avoided, if only they knew what we know.

All these mistakes could have been avoided if only they knew what we know. You don’t have to get experience the expensive way. You will instantly “own” our experience and increase your odds of avoiding these kinds of devastating mistakes.

8. Immediately fire yourself from the frustrating uncertainty and never-ending burden of managing your money and immediately promote yourself

To the very best job – having time for your hobbies and interests and enjoying rich relationships with family and friends!

9. Advice about your whole financial world just a phone call away

Wonder about the rest of your investments? Not sure what to do? We’re as close as your phone. As a private client of Rhoads Lucca Capital Management, you can call anytime from anywhere in the world when you have concerns or questions. In short, you are never alone in the markets.

8. Increase the amount of free time you enjoy

Do what you love. No one can create more time. We can free up your time so you can use it the way you want to use it. Leave the worry and stress to us while you begin to enjoy the free time you have with your family or friends or hobbies or interests.

9. Establish a relationship with a trusted advisor now, ahead of retirement, in case the worst happens to you

One of the most haunting questions we get is, “If something happens to me, will you take care of my wife?” Yes, that’s what we do. It has happened many times during our careers. We are here if the worst happens.

10. Get a complete strategy to help protect your money during irrational markets

The markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. If you make money and give it back in market corrections, what have you accomplished? We’re there for you to execute an investment strategy for you that includes a both sides of investing – offense and defense. Unfortunately, most investment firms have just an offense. You need both.

11. The exact, successful strategy we developed for investing with an offense and a defense is instantly applied to your 401(k) account

Using secrets few professional advisors know – let alone individual investors. Want to test your current financial advisor? Ask if he or she knows what percent of the total return of the NASDAQ happens when the McClellan Summation Index is over 1500. If they can’t answer that question, find a new source of advice.

12. The ability for us to immediately ground the 401k Autopilot®, if we believe there is an emergency

As a professional pilot, you know firsthand the importance of safety and emergency preparedness. You also know that every aircraft that takes off has been checked over carefully to ensure that the emergency equipment is functioning correctly and ready to spring into action, if needed. You have walked around your aircraft many times yourself, examining it for even the smallest issues that could turn into threats to the safety of your flight. Hopefully, all of this concern, prevention and emergency equipment will never be needed.

The ability for us to immediately ground the 401k Autopilot®, if we believe there is an emergency. Sometimes the safest thing to do is get the plane on the ground.

Thankfully, it rarely is needed. But we can all name specific flights when training, procedures and the right equipment worked together to save human lives. Even though this level of effort has gone into the safety of the aircraft itself, sometimes the safest thing to do is get the plane on the ground. So it is with investing.

If your investment strategy isn’t prepared for emergencies and ready to implement safety procedures immediately – even grounding the portfolio when necessary – then your future retirement is at risk and perhaps irreparable harm. As a professional pilot, your travel schedule doesn’t always allow you to be in front of a computer to monitor what is happening. We are here on your behalf.

Without exaggeration, we believe the future will hold challenges that will be dramatic and sudden. This requires increased watchfulness and decision-making. How often do we exercise our ability to immediately ground the 401k Autopilot®? Rarely. But of course, when it is used, it can make all the difference in the future retirement of our clients. It has happened. The world we are investing in today is more volatile and more unpredictable today than at any time in the past three decades. Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. We have it, if it is needed. It will be needed again, just as it was in March of 2000 and October 2008. When it is needed again, we will make safety our priority and land the plane as quickly as practical.

What You Lose Without the Autopilot Working For You

Conversely, not having the Autopilot on your side imprisons you in many ways

• It may leave you subject to your own emotions as an investor.
• Fear, confusion and greed are the ruin of most investors and you may find yourself sharing their fate as you spend frustrating hours sorting through various data, opinions and options.

Not having enough money means this: less freedom and dignity in your life and health care in the future. The 401k Autopilot® is ultimately about giving yourself the luxury of choosing what your life will be like in retirement.

• You’ll probably find that your desire to “play it safe” with your money is at odds with making the kind of money you will need later in retirement. It will be the balance between these two desires in the face of all market conditions that determines your success or failure and ultimately, the quality of life you experience in retirement.
• Your success as an investor has as much to do with keeping what you make as it does with making money. For more on this, read the What We Believe section of our website.

Please note that this is not just about investing your money to make more money. It is equally, and certainly, even more importantly, about the part that no one ever talks about – keeping it. Not giving it all back every time there’s a market correction or extended bear market.

In this way, the Autopilot is the most liberating ally you can have.

Not having enough money means this: less freedom and dignity in your life and health care in the future. The 401k Autopilot® is ultimately about giving yourself the luxury of choosing what your life will be like in retirement. You’ll need the money. We know that. Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it!

Click here to get started by requesting the 401k Autopilot® Starter Kit!