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>have the appropriate retirement target set, along with the proper level of acceptable risk You make that sound so easy. It's not. None of the maths of retir
by Ntrails 9y ago
>have the appropriate retirement target set, along with the proper level of acceptable risk
You make that sound so easy. It's not. None of the maths of retirement planning is hard - but the actual decisions really kind of are.
For example, I've got 10% in corporate debt. Is that more or less risky than Equity? What's the distribution? What's the correlation? How does it compare with Reinsurance, or Property? Is property strongly correlated with the stock market at the tails, or is it a diversifying asset class? Does my passive fund hedge currency risk? Do I want it to? Is private equity a good or a bad idea? Do I want FTSE ALL or FTSE 100?
How about looking at risk appetite. What is the most time it could take for my retirement savings to recover to inflation adjusted parity after a crash (I feel like 15 years is the historical max, but it's a vague memory). Should I look at risk in terms of retirement income or retirement date? Do I expect Annuity rates to improve (e interest rates to go up) or should I mark to current rates for planning purposes.
I think about the amount of context that trustees for DB pension schemes needed to make investment decisions that were sound, and I can't help but wonder how we've ended up with individuals making these decisions on their own.
I've long felt that outside of fees Diversified Growth Funds (Multi Asset Funds?) are a pretty good place to "inactively" manage retirement savings. After fees I'm less convinced. I suspect the Australian model might be closest to what I internally model as best?
- turk183 9y agoIf it's any consolation, 2008/9 proved that everything is pretty much correlated--stocks went down, bonds went down, everything went down. There were no safe havens except for massive government bailouts. To this day, the illegal acts that banks undertook to stay afloat have not been prosecuted (moving all unperforming assets to "off balance sheet vehicles" like holding companies). Also, mark-to-market accounting was suspended and has never been reinstated.
- pragmatic 9y agoOne notable exception: Farm land.