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How Equities Can Reduce Longevity Risk

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How Equities Can Reduce Longevity Risk

Will You Outlive Your Savings?

The desire to live longer — and outrun death — is ingrained in the human spirit. The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, may have even drank mercury in his quest for immortality.

Over time, advice for living longer has become more practical: eat well, get regular exercise, seek medical advice. However, as life expectancies increase, many individuals will struggle to save enough for their lengthy retirement years.

Today’s infographic comes from New York Life Investments, and it uncovers how holding a stronger equity weighting in your portfolio may help you save enough funds for your lifespan.

Longer Life Expectancies

Around the world, more people are living longer.

YearLife Expectancy at Birth, World
196052.6 years
198062.9 years
200067.7 years
201672.1 years

Despite this, many people underestimate how long they’ll live. Why?

  • They compare to older relatives.
    Approximately 25% of variation in lifespan is a product of ancestry, but it’s not the only factor that matters. Gender, lifestyle, exercise, diet, and even socioeconomic status also have a large impact. Even more importantly, breakthroughs in healthcare and technology have contributed to longer life expectancies over the last century.
  • They refer to life expectancy at birth.
    This is the most commonly quoted statistic. However, life expectancies rise as individuals age. This is because they have survived many potential causes of untimely death — including higher mortality risks often associated with childhood.

Longevity Risk

Amid the longer lifespans and inaccurate predictions, a problem is brewing.

Currently, 35% of U.S. households do not participate in any retirement savings plan. Among those who do, the median household only has $1,100 in its retirement account.

Enter longevity risk: many investors are facing the possibility that they will outlive their retirement savings.

So, what’s the solution? One strategy lies in the composition of an investor’s portfolio.

The Case for a Stronger Equity Weighting

One of the most important decisions an investor will make is their asset allocation.

As a guide, many individuals have referred to the “100-age” rule. For example, a 40-year-old would hold 60% in stocks while an 80-year-old would hold 20% in stocks.

As life expectancies rise and time horizons lengthen, a more aggressive portfolio has become increasingly important. Today, professionals suggest a rule closer to 110-age or 120-age.

There are many reasons why investors should consider holding a strong equity weighting.

  1. Equities Have Strong Long-Term Performance

    Equities deliver much higher returns than other asset classes over time. Not only do they outpace inflation by a wide margin, many also pay dividends that boost performance when reinvested.

  2. Small Yearly Withdrawals Limit Risk

    Upon retirement, an investor usually withdraws only a small percentage of their portfolio each year. This limits the downside risk of equities, even in bear markets.

  3. Earning Potential Can Balance Portfolio Risk

    Some healthy seniors are choosing to work in retirement to stay active. This means they have more earning potential, and are better equipped to recoup any losses their portfolio may experience.

  4. Time Horizons Extend Beyond Lifespan

    Many individuals, particularly affluent investors, want to pass on their wealth to their loved ones upon their death. Given the longer time horizon, the portfolio is better equipped to ride out risk and maximize returns through equities.

Higher Risk, Higher Potential Reward

Holding equities can be an exercise in psychological discipline. An investor must be able to ride out the ups and downs in the stock market.

If they can, there’s a good chance they will be rewarded. By allocating more of their portfolio to equities, investors greatly increase the odds of retiring whenever they want — with funds that will last their entire lifetime.

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Investor Education

Visualized: A Step-by-Step Guide to Tax-Loss Harvesting

In Canada, tax-loss harvesting allows investors to turn losses into tax savings. This graphic breaks down how it works in four simple steps.

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An illustrative graphic showing part of the steps in tax-loss harvesting, including selling a $50,000 investment with a $10,000 loss.

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The following content is sponsored by Fidelity Investments

A Step-by-Step Guide to Tax-Loss Harvesting

Market ups and downs can be unnerving, but the good news is that tax-loss harvesting allows investors in Canada to capture tax savings when their portfolio drops in value.

While it sounds complicated, a tax-loss harvesting strategy is actually fairly straightforward. An investor can use capital losses to offset capital gains found elsewhere in their portfolio, leading to a lower tax bill. While there are important conditions to keep in mind, investors can use this strategy to enhance portfolio returns over time by reinvesting these tax savings.

This graphic from Fidelity Investments shows how tax-loss harvesting works and why it may improve tax efficiency in an investor’s portfolio.

Breaking It Down

Consider a person who invested $50,000 in a mutual fund held in a non-registered account that has dropped by $10,000 in value. To help minimize losses, they took the following steps in a tax-loss harvesting strategy.

For the sake of this example, taxes are based on the maximum federal rate and the average maximum provincial tax rate.

  1. Sold investment with a $10,000 loss
  2. Invested $40,000 into a different mutual fund
  3. Used the $10,000 capital loss to offset capital gains realized elsewhere in the non-registered portfolio
  4. Achieved up to $2,550 in tax savings

The investor realized as much as $2,550 in tax savings by utilizing a $10,000 loss against a $10,000 capital gain. Without tax-loss harvesting, this $10,000 capital gain would be taxed at a 50% capital gains inclusion rate ($10,000 X 50% = $5,000). This $5,000 in applicable gains is then taxed at a 51% combined federal and provincial tax rate ($5,000 X 51% = $2,550 in taxes owed).

In contrast, by using tax-loss harvesting, the investor would have achieved up to $2,550 in tax savings.

What’s more, you can reinvest your tax savings over each year—which may help boost portfolio returns over time if the new investment increases in value.

Tax-Loss Harvesting Tips

With a tax-loss harvesting strategy, here are some key tips and considerations to keep in mind:

  • Investment Timeline: A capital loss can be used to offset capital gains not only in the current year, but in the three years prior and/or any year indefinitely in the future.
  • New Investment Type: After selling an investment that’s dropped in value, it’s important to buy a different investment to avoid triggering the ‘superficial loss rule’. Investors can aim to choose an investment with similar long-term returns.
  • Plan for Year-End: In order to achieve a capital loss, plan to sell an investment at least two to three days before the year’s final trading day so the investment settles before year-end.

Together, these tips can help investors strategically execute a tax-loss harvesting strategy.

Tax Made Easier

During volatile markets, investors can seize the opportunity to turn losses into tax savings using tax-loss harvesting as a key tool to help generate higher after-tax returns.

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Explore Fidelity’s tax calculator to discover tax-saving opportunities.

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