Are You Planning to Retire Early?

Are you planning to retire early? The key factor for those who are planning an early retirement is to protect your retirement savings from another bear market.

There’s been a lot of information published recently about the fact that many people close to retirement age have seen their retirement funds disappear as a result of the recession and how delaying retirement by working longer might help them recover some of their losses.

While working longer than planned as a result of the recession can give you more time to save and presumably more time for your retirement savings to grow before you retire, what if there is another extended market decline (or bear market) right after you retire?

If you are planning to retire early, the key factor is to optimize your investment portfolio with a mix of assets that will protect your retirement savings from a market decline or bear market and give you the income you want during retirement without exhausting your funds too soon.

After you start taking money out of your portfolio, a steep loss in your retirement investments due to downward fluctuations in the equity markets will increase the probability of premature portfolio depletion unless you have the right mix of assets to provide an income for life.