What Investment Risk Means to You, Illustrated: Strategic Asset Allocation, the Budget Constraint, and the Volatility of Spending during Retirement

Abstract

In our experience, many investment professionals don’t articulate risk well to clients. This research uniquely and graphically reveals the nature of strategic asset allocation investment risk not only for single-period investors, but also for multi-period investors such as those whose savings are held for retirement. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we evaluate and picture the nature of that multi-period consumption risk with spending rules that are subject to a budget constraint and those that aren’t (such as the 4% rule). Risk in a multi-period context means that realized spending may increase with greater SAA risk, but it may instead be worse.