Remain invested over the long haul

THIS is the seventh instalment of our retirement series. In my previous articles, I shared how I used our proprietary tool RetireWell to give our client David, 59, a reliable income stream throughout his retirement. (Unedited versions of the earlier articles are available at www.providend.com/articles/)

I have written quite a bit on how Buckets 2-6 are invested to get the returns necessary for withdrawals during retirement. But how do we ensure that retirees will get the expected returns from the various investment portfolios to make the strategy work?

As mentioned in my previous articles, by investing in low-cost instruments such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs), indexed-based and evidence-based funds and staying invested over the long run without trying to time the markets, retirees should get the returns that they need. Unfortunately, while the head may understand this, the heart does not.