Challenging tenets of lifecycle investing

I came across this interesting paper
Beyond the Status Quo: A Critical Assessment of Lifecycle Investment Advice by Aizhan Anarkulova, Scott Cederburg, Michael S. O’Doherty

They challenge two central tenets of lifecycle investing

  • savers should diversify across stocks and bonds
  • the young should invest more heavily in stocks than the old

Key takeaways for investors:

There is no significant economic benefit from holding bonds at any point during their lifetimes.

Drawdowns can inflict intense psychological pain, and one worry is that some investors will
abandon their investments rather than stay the course.
Contrary to common intuition, the QDIAs, with their large bond allocations, carry the potential for even larger drawdowns in real terms.

Given the relative safety and strong growth potential of equities, retirement savers and
retirees would likely benefit from adopting a “set it and forget it” strategy that fully invests in domestic and international stocks.

I have to say I never looked at it from this perspective.
How about you?

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Wow, after decades of feeling alone with my ideas finally someone agrees with me.

Whenever my banker tells me to do something I was always much better off doing exactly the reverse. I am a true contrarian. My banker told me to invest 100 minus my age percent in bonds and the rest in stocks. (He also told me “nobody in Switzerland will pay you for land” when he said I should not buy my house because there was too much land included in the deal). After the last zoning change my land is worth like 4 times what the house on it is. :rofl:

Bonds are nonsense, even I used to make tons of money with Canadian junk bonds in the 80s. Pure und undeserved luck!

There is no way somebody can make money with money except for pure luck. And bonds are much alike money. You have almost the same risk as with stocks but way inferior possibilities for making real money.

I short money using debt. Then I buy real value like stocks.

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A great summary and discussion video from Ben Felix on that paper:

There are also two longer podcast episodes with Scott Cederburg himself.

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I presume it was the opposite with higher % in stocks than in bonds?

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Yes, my fault, you are right. As I do not hold any bonds it does not really matter to me. I think he said 100 minus my age percent in stocks and the rest in bonds. More bonds with higher age.