Retirement Withdrawals: Know The Risks

Apr 20

When it’s time to retire, many investors find that saving was just the start of the retirement journey. The next phase is to invest those assets so that they provide income to live on for an entire retirement.

One of the biggest risks to a retirement plan is a period of negative returns early in retirement. That’s when you have the most capital invested, and it has to last the longest amount of time. Early retirement is also often the period when people are drawing the highest income out of their retirement plans, as they adapt to an active new lifestyle. These pressures can significantly reduce the amount of projected retirement capital.

The effect on a portfolio of a period of negative returns in early retirement is called Sequence of Returns Risk. There are ways to mitigate it, but first it’s important to understand how it affects a portfolio.

What Is Sequence of Returns Risk?

One of the biggest risks that comes with taking distributions from a... ...