USA Today is reporting that next year the first of 79 million Baby Boomers will turn 65 and given the stock market’s dismal returns the past decade, few will have as much saved for retirement as they had planned.
John Waggoner writes:
Given the stock market’s dismal returns the past decade, few will have as much saved for retirement as they had planned. The past three months alone, the average stock mutual fund has shrunk by 10%, according to Lipper, which tracks the funds. The past 10 years, the average stock fund has gained an average 0.2% — far below the stock market’s average annual gain of 9.7% since 1926.
A good decade in the market often follows a bad one. But the big question: If Boomers follow the usual pattern of shifting their portfolio mix toward income-generating investments — bank CDs, bonds and dividend-paying stocks — will the stock market’s long dry spell drag on?
