I wanted to take the time to mention the work of Paul Merriman. A lifetime of quality work has gone into his website. He has back tested allocations for decades and fine tuned them to get to his current indexed lowest cost portfolios. Fund choices/allocation is a large part of the puzzle but withdrawal strategy is equally important. Reading his website under tab Best Advice...Retirement Distributions is a fascinating study of withdrawal options over time. Merriman's work is widely published which means the quality of his work is exposed to scrutiny of many. Having said all this, I have learned the hard way that the most important decision an investor makes when taking an indexed approach (or any for that matter) is when to establish their cost basis. Up 200% from market lows or after a recession? Buffet tells the analogy repeatedly about a 20 punch card per investor and patience. I just wanted to mention his work for those of you interested it is worthy of clicking through his website. It rolls up a proposed solution to many of the individual posts and questions made on MFO.
