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A year and a half ago I wrote that my new goal was for my portfolio to grow to a million pounds by the time I was 60. It had just reached my initial target of half that amount. Thus, I required a 9 per cent annual return.

Most of your comments were identical to my school’s reaction when I received a conditional offer to go to Cambridge. No chance, mate. But roll forward 18 months and suddenly Project One Million looks almost sane.

Just as I proved my teachers wrong by actually revising, a bumper 24 per cent gain in 2025 — almost double the average hedge fund manager based on Preqin data — helped enormously. I only need to make 6 per cent annually now.

Hang on a minute, though. In setting these goals haven’t I committed a cardinal sin of investing? I completely ignored inflation. A million pounds in 2032 is not the same as a million pounds two years ago — nor today for that matter.

Is it really a win just to see seven figures in my broker account? Surely, true victory is ending up with the equivalent of £1mn in 2024. As people from countries with high inflation know, only real performance counts. Even in the UK, the average inflation rate for the past 50 years has meant a halving in purchasing power every 17 years.

So I could hardly take any credit if UK consumer prices went berserk — automatically raising the nominal value of my holdings with them. Indeed, in this scenario it’s possible to become a millionaire even if my overseas holdings fell in local currency.

Of course, who knows what inflation will do between now and when I can travel for free on London buses? But if it stays around the current 3 per cent mark, I’m back to needing an annual 9 per cent nominal return again.

Goddammit. There I was thinking that all I had to do was invest in some low-risk income funds. That would almost get me there. Indeed four companies in the FTSE 100 — and I mean sensible ones such as Legal & General and Land Securities — are yielding 6 per cent or more.

Alternatively, one reader suggested in a letter to this paper that I could achieve a running yield of almost 5 per cent by purchasing the “T49” gilt — a long-dated UK government bond maturing in December 2049. And as it’s currently trading at about £12 below par, I might even bag a tax-free capital gain to boot.

This is cool if all I needed was a 6 per cent return in order to achieve a notional million quid. But now I’ve made the inflation adjustment in my head, it isn’t enough. What if we turned the fixed income knob all the way to 11?

My screens tell me there are a couple of bond ETFs out there offering yields of at least 9 per cent. These are emerging market government bond funds. Fine, I think. If the dollar continues to fall, developing world assets tend to do OK.

What is in these funds? Well one has a more than 4 per cent exposure to Uruguay — former country of the year, according to The Economist. It’s also where my two oldest girls spent last Christmas. Maybe a lucky sign.

The next biggest country bets are Indonesia, South Africa and Dominican Republic. Would you lend your savings to politicians in those countries? Maybe for 15 per cent — but not for only 500 basis points over 10-year US Treasuries (the risk-free rate).

I’m pretty reckless, but I want to retire with some money. How about corporate bonds, then? There are loads of credit funds with yields of about 7 per cent. Many are made up exclusively of US debt, too.

Would these be any less volatile than a global credit fund these days given that President Trump has completely wandered off the reservation? No idea, but the dollar took a pounding with every tweet and utterance this week. Conversely, loads of analysts tell me they’ve never been so positive on emerging market credit.

Trouble is, I’m no expert on corporate bonds. All I know from three decades of observing my colleagues who manage the stuff is that credit markets have a history of being fine right up to the point of blowing up in your face. For example, in every major credit cycle since 1980, US high-yield spreads bottomed within 12 months of a recession, followed by average drops of 25 to 35 per cent.

Hence I’m stumped as to how to make 9 per cent annually for the next seven years. Such is my lack of inspiration that I’m tempted to construct a diversified portfolio. This would comprise some high-yield income funds and what I deem to be cheap equity funds — with the latter hedged via options.

Then I’ll just cross my fingers. I don’t have high hopes anyway, because with so many asset classes at or near record levels, future returns mathematically have to fall — in theory at least.

Short of going short, therefore, what I really need is a big correction in stocks or corporate bonds so I can re-enter at levels with much higher expected returns. Since 1900, the best five-year equity returns have almost always followed major crashes.

What about gold, bitcoin or vintage Porsches, I hear some of you cry? No thanks, I don’t like assets that are impossible to value. But even if I did, my online platform doesn’t cater for alternatives anyway.

I can’t even buy individual bonds. Can you? Perhaps it’s time to open an old-school brokerage account. I want to be able to trade everything the world has to offer — not only what UK regulators deem appropriate. More on this next week.

The author is a former portfolio manager. Email: stuart.kirk@ft.com