How to Dodge a Market Dip That Threatens Your Retirement

How should you protect yourself against a market downturn right before or during retirement? This New York Times article recommends several actions, including hiring help - being careful to avoid a salesperson or a broker who call themselves advisors but get paid only when they sell you something – in the form of a Certified Financial Planner professional. Hint: I know one I really like.

It is rare but sometimes I read an article that I think is so spot on it makes more sense to share it than cover the same topic. So, here you go, edited for brevity with a link to the full article at the end.

By Tara Siegel Bernard

You’ve heard it before: When the markets become erratic, or seem poised for a prolonged downturn, the best thing you can do is nothing at all. But if you’re on the cusp of retirement — or, perhaps worse, newly retired — a turbulent stock market can make you feel particularly vulnerable. For older people invested in stocks, the performance of the market in the early years of your retirement can have a lasting effect on your portfolio. If you have to start selling investments when they are worth less, you’ll have to sell more shares to get the cash you need.  

“That can really start digging a hole in your portfolio that becomes harder to dig out of,” said Wade Pfau, professor of retirement income at the American College for Financial Services. “It is really the first 10 years of the market performance in retirement that are going to drive your outcome.”

Here are some steps retirees can take to lengthen the life of their savings when markets are less than cooperative:

Portfolio Check. Retirees need to ask themselves a couple of key questions. Is my portfolio broadly diversified? Is my allocation to stocks more than my stomach can handle should the market plummet 50 percent, as it did in 2008 and 2009?

If you answer “no” to these questions, you should reassess (preferably with a pro) how reducing your stock exposure might change your ability to spend what you want in retirement.

Mindful Spending. One of the most widely cited rules for retirement spending might be what’s known as the 4 percent rule. It suggests that retirees who withdrew 4 percent of their initial retirement portfolio balance, and then adjusted that dollar amount for inflation each year thereafter, would have created a paycheck that lasted for 30 years.

But if your portfolio value takes a significant hit, your withdrawal rate may have to increase to support your spending. If that rate starts to approach 5 percent, and certainly 6 percent, there’s a greater chance you’ll outlive your portfolio, Mr. Pfau warned. So adjustments may be in order.

The simplest way to deal with a dip would be to hold your spending steady, rather than increasing it with inflation. That approach can be enough to steady your finances even if your portfolio were to drop by 25 percent from its original value at retirement, according to Judith Ward, a senior financial planner with T. Rowe Price, based on a recent study. She suggested to keep spending steady for two to four years, depending on when the portfolio rebounds.

Create a Smoother Ride. Traditionally, investors reduce their exposure to stocks as they approach retirement. But one novel approach is to cut that exposure even further — then get back into the market as you age.

This strategy, studied by Mr. Pfau and Michael Kitces, director of wealth management at Pinnacle Advisory, is to increase your stock holdings over time. Portfolios that started with about 20 to 40 percent in stocks at retirement, and then gradually increased to about 50 or 60 percent, lasted longer than those with static mixes or those that shed stocks, according to their analysis.

Hold a Cash Reserve. If you’re approaching retirement and worried about a significant market correction, there’s another strategy that might provide some peace of mind: Keep up to two years of basic living expenses in cash to cover, say, the costs of housing, food and other essentials. With that sort of buffer, you can try to avoid tapping your investment portfolio for a while, giving it some time to recover.

Putting too much money in cash, however, may weaken overall returns because you will have less invested to begin with, and therefore less to build on.

Look for Higher Returns. This does not involve chasing after some hot stock or growing sector. It’s far more boring and counterintuitive, but guaranteed to deliver a higher paycheck in retirement over the long run: delay Social Security as long as you reasonably can.

“The effective return of delaying Social Security is much higher than what you will earn in the market today,” said David Blanchett, head of retirement research for Morningstar. “It is like a 10 percent guaranteed return.”

Your benefits generally rise by 8 percent for each year you wait to collect the check beyond your “full retirement age” — that is, the age you’re eligible for a full benefit, which is currently 66 years and 2 months for people born in 1955.

Someone set to receive a full benefit of $1,413 monthly (the average benefit amount), who instead waited two more years, would receive roughly $1,640 — an amount that would rise with inflation.

Get Help. If you doubt you have the strength to avoid temptation and stay the course — or you want assistance developing a coping strategy — this is the time to seek professional help. It can potentially make or break your retirement.

But you need to get the right type of help, which means avoiding salespeople and brokers who call themselves advisers but get paid only when they sell you something. Instead, find a certified financial planner who isn’t afraid to promise in writing that he or she will act as a fiduciary, which is legal speak for putting your interests ahead of their own.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/your-money/stock-market-retirement.html

Steve Byars