Episode 404: What If I Retire Into A Market Crash?

David McKnight addresses one of the biggest fears people have as they approach retirement: "What if I retire right into a market crash?". Not only this represents one of the biggest challenges in retirement planning but it's also one of the reasons why David advocates for protecting yourself from sequence of returns risk.  When it comes to long-term stock market investing, it's important to understand the difference between retirement years and accumulation years. Sequence of returns is the order in which market returns occur in your portfolio.  That order, David stresses, can make or break your retirement unless you've taken steps to prepare your portfolio ahead of time. The danger isn't simply that the market goes down, as markets always recover eventually. The danger is being forced to sell investments while they're down in order to fund your lifestyle.  David touches upon the dot-com collapse and 2008 mortgage meltdown as extraordinarily difficult periods for retirees who only reli...