OK, Boomer

[ochotona]

(Bloomberg) -- Hey, baby boomers: lay off the stocks.

That’s the message from Fidelity Investments in its third-quarter retirement report. Boomers, or the generation born between 1944 and 1964, have been riding a 10-year bull market into retirement, steadily upping bets on stocks to boost 401(k) returns and exposing them to unnecessary risk.

More than a third of the generation had crossed over Fidelity’s recommended allocation to stocks, which is 70% for those 10 years from retirement. Almost one-tenth of boomers were entirely in equities during the quarter, running the risk of serious losses in a market meltdown.

[dualstow]

I thought was was going to be a left-eating-itself post.

[pugchief]

William Bernstein famously advised that you quit playing once you have 'won the game' lest that win turn into a loss. I guess everyone has a different idea of 'winning', but if you are in the PP you don't have to choose either option.

[mathjak107]

in practice though , we don't know we won the game until we die . don't forget even the 4% safe withdrawal rate has failed and ended before 30 years , with zero balance left , 5% of the 119 30 year cycles to date . so i dont buy into Bernstein' s winning the game saying . in fact if you doubled our retirement income it still would not cover all the things on our wish list now that we are in the last down of our lives.

so i really have no idea what " winning the game is even supposed to mean " , it just sounds catchy .

we have lots of sayings in the financial world that sound great but mean very little

[dualstow]

I would define winning the game as firmly believing that I have enough capital to easily live off my investments.
You might be technically, right, mathjak, as there is always the chance of unforeseen disasters. However, I would enjoy the present as long as it lasts.

[mathjak107]

so do we . we are retired for 4 years now and after drawing 6 figures a year while delaying ss we are are way higher today then the day we retired . but i would never say i won the game in any respect other than we are where we are today .

we still want as a big a cushion as possible for the unknown , we still need to invest and we still count on favorable sequences taking place .

i don't call that winning in any way as far as no longer needing to have assets at risk in something

[dualstow]

There are a lot of b’heads who agree with you. They seem not to like the term ‘win’ or even ‘game’.
To each his own.

[mathjak107]

in my opinion , Bernstein's statement about winning the game makes it sound like there is some magic number where we can just get rid of any asset with risk and sit back and live on cd's , annuities and t-bills .

unless you want to make very inefficient use of your money by drawing a very low rate there is not going to be a time we can do that ...

while 4% is a pretty conservative draw rate and left you with more than you started with 90% of all those cycles you still risk failure in fixed income only .

in practice we use bob clyatts 95/5 method of draw .. it is dynamic and sets our goal posts each year based on actual balance with some rules . , as i said we can easily exceed what we should spend with our bucket list. so we need goal posts to stay within . .

[dualstow]

in my opinion , Bernstein's statement about winning the game makes it sound like there is some magic number where we can just get rid of any asset with risk and sit back and live on cd's , annuities and t-bills .

unless you want to make very inefficient use of your money by drawing a very low rate there is not going to be a time we can do that ...

I don't expect to reach that level of wealth (especially if Liz Warren wins), but I would happily invest inefficiently and live deliciously if I had enough t-bills.

[mathjak107]

it all depends what you want from retirement . I spent a life time investing , taking risks , saving and doing without at times , so we can live better in retirement then we did when our efforts had to go towards raising a family …

thankfully luck , my skills , and motivation all coincided and met and left us in pretty good shape . but no way would I go to T-bills for an income , not here in nyc where we live .

i spent my life at 100% equities and now need 40% as an allocation so that is about as much winning the game as i would say we have done

[dualstow]

thankfully luck , my skills , and motivation all coincided and met and left us in pretty good shape .

You won't know that until you die.

[mathjak107]

Exactly ,which is why I say there is no “ won “ the game.

But for now we are in pretty healthy shape since we are retired 4-1/2 years now , have 4-1/2 less years of life left and are hundreds of thousands of dollars higher then the day we retired