The BSE Sensex closed above 20,000 on 11 December 2007. By October 2008, the retiree would have notionally lost more than 60% of their equity corpus when the Sensex plummeted below 8,000. This risk, wherein negative market returns occur early in retirement or even during the last leg of working years, impacting the longevity of retirement savings, is known as sequence of returns risk.
It's one thing to claim that equity investments, on average, provide a certain return, but it's an entirely different matter when the specific pattern of gains or losses cannot be predicted in advance.
Consider a scenario with two retirees, A and B. Retiree A, upon retiring, invested 50% of their retirement corpus in an Index Fund tracking the S&P BSE Sensex in March 2003 when the Sensex was around 3,000. This retiree witnessed a doubling of their equity investment in the first year and, by December 2007, grew their equity investment nearly 7 times the original amount.
Upon observing this success, Retiree B decided to allocate 50% of their retirement corpus to equity. However, facing the downturn described at the start of the article, Retiree B fared worse.
This story is from the December 15, 2023 edition of Mint Mumbai.
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This story is from the December 15, 2023 edition of Mint Mumbai.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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