General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do you have 1 million saved for retirement? May not be enough. [View all]FreeJoe
(1,039 posts)I understand your math on the loss/gain ratio issue, but the market doesn't usually behave that way. When it has crashed in the past, it has fully recovered. For some crashes, that took a very long time (great depression). For some (1987), it happened stunningly fast. For the most recent crash, it only took a couple of years to recoup your losses if you stayed invested. The trick is not to even be in stocks if you cannot afford to stay invested.
I agree that you don't want to be fully invested in stocks when you retire (assuming that you don't have an absurdly large fortune). I think most people (at least most people with money and sense) start shifting steadily away from stocks and into bonds and even money market funds as retirement nears. I've still got a ways to go, but my plan is to have something like 1 year of expenses in cash, 1 year of expenses in CDs, 10 years of expenses in a variety of bonds, and the remainder in stocks. In that sense, I'll be dollar cost averaging OUT of the market. It is sort of the opposite of the way I got in.
I do similar things for savings with shorter horizons. My kids college funds were entirely in stocks when they were infants. Those funds have steadily moved into more bonds and now even into money market funds. My expected return is declining, but my risk levels are declining as well.