Money Sense on Fortune
Given today’s longer lifespans, how much should people be socking away? I asked and answered in this week’s column.
FORTUNE — The most frightening billboard I saw in recent months ran along the Westside Highway in Manhattan. From the good folks at Prudential, it read: The First Person To Live To 150 Is Alive Today, with the subhead, Plan For A Longer Retirement. A few weeks later, our sister publication, Time Magazine, followed in tandem, asking the question on its cover: Can Google Solve Death?
We get it. From a financial (as well as, of course, a medical) perspective, longevity is very likely the issue of the century. What can you do about that? Saving more never hurts, the folks behind America Saves Week, which happens to be now, nudge us to remember on an annual basis. (If you need help saving more, check out the resources here.)
But, the longer your time horizon, the more you may also want to think about socking away in stocks. A new paper from Morningstar Head of Retirement Research David Blanchett along with Michael Finke of Texas Tech University and Wade Pfau of The American College looks at the issue of time diversification, defined as “the anomaly where equities become less risky longer investment periods.” The researchers look at 113 years of data from 20 countries and found that, yes, the longer your time horizon, the more you may want to allocate your investments to equities.
For more, head over to Fortune.
