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whisky_in_your_water t1_jactbhw wrote

Another option is a bond tent. Basically, shift your portfolio to 40% bonds as you get closer to retirement (say, over 5-10 years), and then glide back down to 100% stocks over 10 years or so. This is more useful for early retirees expecting a long retirement, but it can certainly work for anyone retiring at any age.

The intuition is that the biggest risk is sequence of returns risk, i.e. taking a big hit (your 30%) in the first few years of retirement, so the plan is to just protect the first 10 years or so of retirement. Invested money approximately doubles every 10 years, so your 60% stocks should be 120% of their original value after 10 years, which is enough buffer to ride out another hit without needing bonds.

This strategy obviously takes some effort, so it's only really valuable if you expect to have a long time horizon.

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