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Start gradually converting your equity to bonds is the standard advice on that timeframe. If you're dreading equity drawdowns, that's what fixed income is for.

• solenoid0937 4mo ago
  This is absolutely terrible advice and is out of touch with modern financial understanding. Bonds feel psychologically safer, but lead to failure more often than total market equity portfolios, even when you account for market crashes. https://youtu.be/p25PPBgMiEk https://youtu.be/p25PPBgMiEk
  • senordevnyc 4mo ago
    I always thought the psychological safety was exactly part of the point, since 100% equity portfolios do better in theory than practice, because people are more likely to panic sell.
    • deleted 4mo ago
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  • GoatOfAplomb 4mo ago
    I agree with everything in the video you linked (which is not surprising, given it's Ben Felix). That includes the parts about equities being less risky than bonds in very important ways, but also the parts about behavioral loss tolerance and risk capacity, and how they can indicate higher bond allocation. So I disagree that "If you're dreading equity drawdowns, that's what fixed income is for" is absolutely terrible advice.
  • rootusrootus 4mo ago
    I feel like I should go learn some more. I'm not in a pure index fund, I'm really in VFORX (almost completely, I'm not too original nor sophisticated financially and don't try to pick my own stock picks these days except with my "lunch money" just for fun). Do you think something like VFORX is a bad option? It's actively managed, so the fees will be a little higher than a pure index fund, but it's Vanguard and the fees are still really low. And it has total market components in addition to bonds.
    • solenoid0937 4mo ago
      Active management in general is a poor idea. You'll get better risk adjusted returns by investing in total world equities (like VT). Check out Bogleheads to learn the basics. If you want to get more advanced, you can learn about factor investing as well, but VT is enough for the vast majority. If you want to get intuition for why this works, this is a really fun and interesting video: https://youtu.be/TQuxVz52w2w https://youtu.be/TQuxVz52w2w
      • donbox 4mo ago
        For VFOROX, the expense ratio is 0.08% which is pretty low. Also VT is 45% of it. VFOROX looks well balanced to me, with 3:1 equity to bond ratio. https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/profile/vforx#portfolio-composition https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-fun...
      • ifwinterco 4mo ago
        The boglehead approach has worked fantastically for ~40 years, but now that everyone is doing it, it may no longer be the case going forwards. Normally with these things when absolutely everyone is crowded on one side of the boat, you want to be on the other side
        • OvervCW 4mo ago
          What exactly is the opposite side? Is it actively managing a portfolio? Because most people don't have the time to do that.
  • eep_social 4mo ago
    What you said is not what the linked video says, so at best this is terrible advice piling onto terrible advice.
    • solenoid0937 4mo ago
      It is precisely what the video says. Ben has discussed this multiple times as well, not just in this video. If you have better behavioral tolerance for volatility (as in you're not the type to panic sell), total market equities will outperform and lead to less failure in retirement.
      • zie 4mo ago
        While partially true, that "If you have better behavioral tolerance for volatility" is HUGE. Most people can not do this. Once they see their net worth go from $x to $x/2 or worse, they panic sell. People are emotional beings and it's very very hard to not let your emotions dictate what's going on. If you haven't lived through a market panic and crash(last one in the US was 2008/2009), then chances are you shouldn't count yourself as being able to do it. Also, their 100% equity time frames are measured in many lifetimes, not in a single lifetime. If the goal is to have the biggest $ balance, then sure 100% equities for the win, but if the goal is to survive your retirement with little worry, 100% equities is a terrible idea. Bonds provide stable cash flow. Equities provide growth/return. Use both in the appropriate amounts for your situation.
        • throwaway2037 4mo ago
          > Bonds provide stable cash flow. Equities provide growth/return. Use both in the appropriate amounts for your situation. This is sound advice. I want to add some nuance about "bonds": Consider some broad categories: (1) regular gov't bonds, (2) inflation protected gov't bonds, (3) investment grade corporate bonds, and (4) high yield corporate bonds. In category (4), it is possible to get both cash flow and capital appreciation. It is the bond-equivalent of "stock picking".
          • 4mo ago
• Gareth321 4mo ago
  Bonds are no longer recommended. Current research indicates 100% equities to be the best composition leading up to, and past, retirement. To point, the economic uncertainties around geopolitics, AI, and war, plus irresponsible debt spending by governments and the prospect of QE (and higher inflation), is pushing long term rates steadily higher. There’s a reasonable chance that 30y treasuries are nearing 6% by the end of next year. Remember that rates and bond prices are inversely related. Anyone who holds bonds in this market will likely lose money. Holding to maturity won’t help much either because if inflation continues to rise, as is a major concern, most or all of that 5% yield gets eaten.
  • gretch 4mo ago
    > Anyone who holds bonds in this market will likely lose money. Yes, you lose money (or more precisely you lose opportunity) but you gain certainty. Which is what you want for retirement That’s pretty much the definition of risk premium.
    • lokar 4mo ago
      It depends on the goal / priority. In most financial / retirement advice they are focused on average middle class Americans. They tend to have too little savings, and not a lot of options. If you have more than enough saved to meet your basic needs, it does (IMO) make sense to give up some total income for lower variance.
    • SecretDreams 4mo ago
      I sleep on certainty. I feel bad for the people based their futures entirely on a trajectory from a time we'll look back on as "utterly unsustainable".
      • toomuchtodo 4mo ago
        If you don’t have hope when you have little else, you don’t have anything. The behavior is understandable, even if wildly irrational.
    • 4mo ago
• rootusrootus 4mo ago
  I'm technically not really in pure index funds, I just wanted to avoid trying to complicate my thoughts. Nearly all of my investments are in VFORX or Schwab's equivalent, and have been for a long time. So they are really composed of total market funds, bonds, etc, and Vanguard changes the ratio a bit as 2036 approaches. So while not really an index fund, from my perspective as a lay investor I treat it like that and consider myself an honorary Boglehead. I just put money in and forget about it.
  • throwaway2037 4mo ago
    I looked at the fund (VFORX) here: https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/profile/vforx https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-fun... It looks excellent for your needs, and have an incredibly low expensive ratio of 8bps(!). Currently, it is 75% stocks, and 25% bonds. Don't worry about a bubble in the stock market. EDIT (after reading many, many more negative comments below): The problem with discussing your investments online, there are a million negative replies. No one ever says: "Yeah, looks pretty good. Leave it alone." I'm here to be that guy.
    • rootusrootus 4mo ago
      > I'm here to be that guy. I really appreciate when someone chooses to be that guy.
• mijowi 4mo ago
  As others have pointed out, bonds are barely (or not) keeping up with inflation. I would like to suggest a third alternative to stock index and bonds: stable dividend stocks. They should increase in value along with inflation but still pay out a steady dividend as long as the company is strong.
  • riffraff 4mo ago
    Buy inflation linked bonds? They won't yield much above inflation but if you have >1M that's enough to last through retirement.
  • oezi 4mo ago
    With the big caveat that strong dividend yields can be an indicator that the market is considering the company to do poorly in the future.
  • zie 4mo ago
    Very different risk profiles. Bonds are about steady cash flow, not about total return. "stable" dividend stocks are almost never really stable when the financial world crashes.
    • throwaway2037 4mo ago
      > "stable" dividend stocks are almost never really stable when the financial world crashes. Completely agree. Also, many div stocks are just one industrial accident or scandal away from a huge drop in their stock price. People who tout preferred shares are in a similar camp in my opinion. As we discovered in 2008/2009, during a crash, there is no where safe except cash. Suddenly, all financial assets have a correlation of 1.0.
  • throwaway2037 4mo ago
    > As others have pointed out, bonds are barely (or not) keeping up with inflation. I see this sentiment a lot, but the stats do not hold up. For example, the annual inflation rate in the US in 2025 was 2.7%. That number comes from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. For looking at corporate bond rates, it is useful to consider the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index (aka "the Agg"). It has a weighted average maturity of about 8 years (intermediate-term), currently has a yield-to-maturity of about 4.75%. Everytime I see a debate of stocks vs bonds on the Internet, someone pops into the convo to remind everyone about "stable" dividend stocks. Honestly, for sophisticated investors, I just to don't see this strategy frequently deployed. It seems more like talking heads on the Internet. Has anyone done backtesting on performance of high div stocks vs some combination of S&P 500 and investment grade corp bonds? I would expect the latter to greatly outperform.
• bsder 4mo ago
  One of the lessons from 2008 is that even the contrary position gets obliterated when the whole damn system implodes. So, the optimists all swim in the cash while your contrary position fails to keep pace with the bull market; and then the bear market hits and you all get obliterated equally.
• digitaltrees 4mo ago
  You absolutely need to get inflation adjusted bonds. Otherwise you’ll get wiped out. I am in the krugman, stiglitz monetary camp; so not prone to constant fear of hyperinflation but what the government is doing makes inflation certain and the only way out a fairly painful recession either of will be hard on equity and bonds. The market of a good leader is a lack of chaos. We are seeing the effects of a chaotic mind untethered from an accurate view of reality. Buckle up