Only if it's still high when you go to retire. It probably will not still be high when you go to retire, because the very act of many people drawing on their s

Only if it's still high when you go to retire. It probably will not still be high when you go to retire, because the very act of many people drawing on their stock portfolios to fund retirement will put downward pressure on stock prices. Ironically, if you happen to have made lots of money in the stock market over the last 10-15 years, your best strategy may be to retire now, mid-career, even if you don't have enough to last the rest of your life. Basically you're arbitraging the large labor force of today to fund your time off through high stock values. Then when the market crashes, the recovery will likely be in all-new firms in all-new industries, so you reinvent yourself to capitalize on the labor shortage then. Or even better, start one of those new firms and capitalize on all the workers who need to go back to work because they can't afford their retirements. You can't do that with a 401k, though, it'd have to be a taxable investment account that you can withdraw at will.