US investors want US$3 million in savings for comfortable retirement

IT IS one of the thorniest financial questions: how much is enough to retire comfortably? 

The answer is somewhere between US$3 million and US$5 million, according to the 553 investors worldwide who shared their views in Bloomberg’s latest MLIV Pulse survey. About a third of investors pegged it at US$3 million, and roughly another third at US$5 million.

Most respondents are optimistic that they will move closer to their retirement goal by ending 2023 with more in retirement savings than at the end of 2022. Last year, inflation and rising borrowing costs hammered stocks, and since bond prices also plunged, the average US 401(k) retirement account was down 20 per cent at plans where Vanguard Group is a record keeper.

This year, both professional and retail investors expect stocks and bonds to resume their traditional relationship by moving in opposite directions, with fixed income serving as a cushion for any potential losses from riskier assets.

Respondents were not as sure about whether they would ultimately have enough saved to maintain their lifestyle in retirement. Less than half of investors placed the odds of that at 100 per cent.

“It’s no wonder many would-be retirees are doubting the viability of their nest eggs,” said Christine Benz, Morningstar’s director of personal finance and retirement planning. “While inflation appears to be cooling off, it increases the amount of funds that a person needs to have in retirement.”

That uncertainty likely also reflects the economic outlook, with corporate profits shrinking, and recession a possibility later this year.

Whether the expected gain in 401(k) balances will come from investments or from contributions is unclear. A lot of retirement savings are invested in index funds that track the S&P 500, and, particularly for older savers, in actively managed equity funds heavily weighted in the benchmark index’s top stocks.

During the bull run, mega-cap tech stocks like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Alphabet and Meta Platforms came to dominate the index, leading to very concentrated investment portfolios for many savers. These stocks kicked off the year with a nice rally after a horrible 2022.

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Nevertheless, investors expect those market leaders to be supplanted. Asked whether the same general group of giant tech stocks will drive the US stock market performance over the next three years, 58 per cent said that they expect new leaders to emerge. 

“When five names in the S&P 500 make up more than 20 per cent of the index, those names tend to lag the index over the next three to five years,” said Bob Shea, chief investment strategist at Dynasty Financial Partners. 

He also expects 2023 to be a year when non-US assets, particularly in Asia, begin to outperform. Asia was chosen by the highest percentage of MLIV survey respondents as the region outside the US most likely to have the best dollar-denominated returns in 2023.

China’s faster-than-expected reopening helped fuel a rally that started in November, but recent geopolitical tensions and concerns about the country’s economic recovery have weighed on the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, which is down about 11 per cent from a late January peak.

Most investors are not adjusting their retirement plans, despite the uncertain economic outlook and recent losses in their accounts. Some 56 per cent of survey respondents said that they were sticking with their retirement plans. About 8 per cent said that they are thinking about never retiring. BLOOMBERG