Free – I retired 15 years ago. Over the years I’ve followed the old Wall Street allocation bromide: Subtract your age from 100 and that is the allocation in stocks.
Once you get to age 50, I think it’s too conservative. Currently, 50% in the stock market is about fully invested for me – it is a cautious and conservative number. If I feel very confident, I might go to 60%; had we seen a successful retest of the recent bottom, 80% (or more) would not have been out of the question. As a general rule, I rarely drop below 30% invested in stocks. This allows for gains if I am bearish and the market goes up; on the other hand, with 30% in stocks, I would only be down 15% if the stock market dropped 50% and I’d still have a lot of cash to put to work at the bottom.
Congratulations on your retirement!
