Article published by Kiplinger.com
Written by Pete Tychsen
“If you’re feeling whiplash these days when you check your investment accounts, you’re not alone.”
“Although the stock market has generally climbed higher in the past few years, we all can agree that it’s been a roller-coaster ride — especially for soon-to-be retirees who expect to regularly draw a chunk of their income from a stock-market-heavy portfolio.
“Don’t get me wrong. If the market dips or dives while you’re still working, it’s not fun. But you’re more likely to recover from a big loss — even though it may take a while — because you’re not pulling money out of your accounts and you’re still putting money in.
“A volatile market is far more dangerous when you start to take withdrawals.
“Financial professionals call this potential peril sequence of returns risk, and what it boils down to is this: If negative returns occur in the first years of your retirement, and you need to sell some of your holdings to get the income you require, there’s a good chance you’ll have to sell more shares because you’ll be selling at a lower price. That means you may not have enough shares left in your prematurely drained portfolio to take advantage of positive returns when they occur in the future.
“It’s the timing that matters. And, unfortunately, we can’t predict what the market will do in the years just before and after your retirement date.”
Click here to read the rest of this article.