"Angie O’Leary is the
head of wealth planning at RBC Wealth Management, U.S."
OMG.
O'Leary: "he rule uses a portfolio assumption of
60% stocks and 40% bonds."
Bengen (actual paper): "portfolios consisting of
50-percent intermediate-term Treasury notes and
50-percent common stocks (an
arbitrary asset allocation chosen for
purposes of illustration)"
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O'Leary: "would create a paycheck that lasted for
30 years"
Bengen: "In no past case has it caused a portfolio to be exhausted before
33 years"
(from this Bengen concluded that if all you needed was 30 years, 4% would work)
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O'Leary: " modern times require a more dynamic approach to the 4% rule"
Bengen (not so modern times, I guess): "Let us consider first the case where there is a change in the client's goals. ..."
---
O'Leary: "
Now ..., experts recognize that this simple rule of thumb needs some modernization. "
Just now? The "rule" has been analyzed, critiqued, modified, qualified, etc. since the day it was published. For solid, substantial yet reasonably readable and moderately short "modernization", from six years ago, here's
Vanguard,
Revisiting the ‘4% spending rule’ https://www.vanguard.com/pdf/s325.pdfO'Leary expresses concern that "Historical [nominal] bond returns for this period were close to
5%, well below what can be expected today." Vanguard somewhat dismisses this concern:
Vanguard believes it’s important for investors to consider real-return expectations when constructing portfolios, since today’s low stock dividend yields and U.S. Treasury bond yields are, in part, associated with lower expected inflation today than 20 or 30 years ago. [Vanguard projects a 50/50 portfolio to be in the 3.0%-4.5% real-return range]. Although this level is moderately below the actual average real return of 5.0% for the same portfolio since 1926, it potentially offers support for the continued feasibility of a 4% inflation-adjusted withdrawal program as a starting point.
While I'm not as confident as Vanguard, their point is well taken - just because nominal returns are not expected to be as high as in the past doesn't mean that real returns won't be in the same ballpark.
O'Leary isn't providing information, just bullet points, points which experts are not "now" recognizing, but have been looking at for decades.
Here's Bengen's original paper, published in the Journal of Financial Planning, not written as piece for Marketwatch:
http://www.retailinvestor.org/pdf/Bengen1.pdf