# Build a retirement portfolio that works without you 2026-08-17T02:02:29+00:00 | Business & Economy | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet A crisis such as Chennai's 2015 floods, the Spain-Portugal power outage of April 2025, or a prolonged Internet disruption can cut an investor off from managing their money for weeks. The Hindu reports an unverified social-media account of an investor who travelled nearly 2,000 km from Madrid to Italy just to execute a single trade during a blackout. The story underscores a core question: what happens to a portfolio when the owner is absent? Investments that require daily monitoring, such as swing trades, become a risk when the investor cannot access a broker's app or phone. A long-term retirement portfolio should ideally require no action for a month or more. The Hindu advises investors to test each holding by mentally switching off all devices and asking what happens if they do nothing for 30 days. If the answer is nothing, the investment is sound. If it demands a decision or a button press at a precise moment, the investor has discovered a hidden dependence. ## Coverage - thehindu.com This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Tags: Chennai, Italy, Madrid, Portugal, Spain, The Hindu Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/build-a-retirement-portfolio-that-works-without-you/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/build-a-retirement-portfolio-that-works-without-you/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes. How this brief was made: an AI model read the report linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/