I investigate how well market valuation and yield measures predict the maximum sustainable withdrawal rate (MWR) that a person can use with their retirement savings to obtain inflation-adjusted income over a 30-year period. The regression framework includes variables to predict long-term stock...

Countless current and prospective retirees now rely on portfolio success rates calculated from the historical data for different retirement withdrawal strategies when planning their own retirements. Past history-based studies ushered forth what has become known as the 4 percent rule for...

Most literature about retirement planning treats the working (accumulation) and retirement (decumulation) phases separately. The traditional approach decides on safe withdrawal rate, uses it to derive a wealth accumulation target, and then calculates the savings rate required to achieve this...

The aim of traditional retirement planning is to set a wealth accumulation target for your retirement date so that your desired expenditures can be obtained using a “safe” withdrawal rate. But it is quite difficult to know if you are making progress toward this target. Volatility over short...

An important and frequently studied question for retirees is: what is the optimal asset allocation during retirement? This article provides a brief but simple message that conservative asset allocations in retirement are quite acceptable after all. A wide range of asset allocations tend to...

Shortfall risk retirement income analyses offer little insight into how much risk is optimal, and how risk tolerance affects retirement income decisions. This study models retirement income risk in a manner consistent with risk tolerance in portfolio selection in order to estimate optimal asset...

Most retirement withdrawal rate studies are either based on historical data or use a particular assumption about portfolio returns unique to the study in question. But planners may have their own capital market expectations for future returns from stocks, bonds, and other assets they deem...

Focusing on a “safe withdrawal rate” and then deriving a “wealth accumulation target” to achieve by the retirement date is the wrong way to think about retirement planning. Such a formulation isolates the working (accumulation) and retirement (decumulation) phases. When considered...