Should retirees be 100% invested in equities?

Ah look, surely your retiree has already blindly followed industry practice. Could go around in circles all day on this. I made my point that I think it was unrealistic to start with equal pots when Colm’s point is that a 100% equities guy most likely started 2000 with a bigger pot.

I don’t recall anybody suggesting moving a conservative portfolio to 100% equities on date of retirement. Seems like you’re arguing against a case nobody has made, and twisted quite a bit to get there.
 
I also made this point which seems to have been missed.

In the accumulation stage sequence of returns doesn’t matter. So investors can keep a higher equity bias for longer if they are buying regularly.

This was my criticism of lifestyle/target date funds which is what started off this whole debate.
 
Sure but what I mean is there’s no reason, ex ante, to expect one portfolio to outperform the other.

The glide path portfolio certainly mitigates the SORR issue to a greater extent but you are compressing the time that you have the higher allocation to equities. In other words, it’s not a free lunch.
 
If someone came in to me with money to invest, be it into a personal investment, pension of ARF, we always ensure that they have an adequate cash fund that they can use in the case of a downturn or when they need it.

There's no reason to complicate things. Keep it simple and you are more likely to stick to your plan.


Steven
http://www.bluewaterfp.ie (www.bluewaterfp.ie)
 

Yey - thanks Steven - another vote for common sense. Interesting and reassuring that no financial adviser (that I'm aware of) has yet to agree with this blanket all equity punt being advocated by some on this site.

I remember my financial adviser discussing with me how he tries to balance "willingness, ability and need to take investment risk" when suggesting an asset allocation range for clients. That just seems sensible. I really can't fathom how some people are trying to complicate things by over-simplifying them! [ALL EQUITIES GOOD, OTHER APPROACHES BAD!]

I suppose that, at the very least, people who read these threads and decide to go all equity won't be able to say.........nobody warned me this could go smelly!

Just one question in passing. Duke of Marmalade mentioned last night that there were concerns/mutterings about index investments (I'm sure you've seen the post). Has this issue come onto your horizon? Has it prompted any change in advice to clients, etc.?
 
Yey - thanks Steven - another vote for common sense. Interesting and reassuring that no financial adviser (that I'm aware of) has yet to agree with this blanket all equity punt being advocated by some on this site.
But in Ireland, most people with pension funds own their own homes and have a great inflation protected annuity, so they are not 100% in equities anyway.
 
This has been a concern since indexing first started in the 1970s.

The argument goes you need active managers to ensure markets work through price discovery.

If markets are becoming less efficient due to indexing you should see more managers beating the market. In the annual SPIVA score card https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/research-insights/spiva/

there is no evidence that managers are finding it easier to beat the market