Beyond the 4% Rule: A Ratchet Strategy for 100% Success and Growing Income
Resume IA
L'auteur propose une stratégie de retrait d'argent de son portefeuille appelée 'Ratchet Strategy' qui vise à maximiser les dépenses actuelles et à les augmenter au fil du temps sans les diminuer, en utilisant un portefeuille diversifié composé de VT et de bonds.
Conseil cle
Il est important de prendre en compte les risques potentiels et les limites des stratégies de retrait d'argent, même si elles semblent prometteuses, et de considérer les commentaires et les critiques de la communauté avant de les mettre en œuvre.
I devised this strategy because I wasn't satisfied with the standard withdrawal strategies found online. The constant dollar method (like the 4% rule) often leaves too much money on the table, while variable withdrawal rates risk forcing significant spending cuts for years at a time. My goal was to create a strategy with a 100% historical success rate that maximizes current spending and only increases over time - never decreases. To hedge against USD inflation and the potential for waning US economic dominance, I chose a portfolio consisting primarily in VT (Vanguard Total World Stock ETF) + Bonds. Most withdrawal rate research suffers from home bias, focusing heavily on US-only portfolios that benefited from the American economic boom of the 20th century. I wanted to perform my own investigation with a global focus. I used the Bogleheads VPW Backtesting Spreadsheet for my backtests. This spreadsheet focuses primarily on VPW but also contains a backtest of a constant withdrawal rate for comparison. Best of all it includes international index performance history dating back to the early 1900s, data that I struggled to find elsewhere. [https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Variable\_percentage\_withdrawal#Backtesting\_Spreadsheet](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Variable_percentage_withdrawal#Backtesting_Spreadsheet) I prefer historical backtesting over Monte Carlo simulations because I believe simulations fail to capture the dependent relationship between a prior year's returns/inflation and the future's. I stress-tested the portfolio against the two worst times to retire in history: 1929 and 1966. I looked up the US/International market cap ratio for those specific years and plugged them into the spreadsheet. While the spreadsheet uses fixed allocations (and VT shifts dynamically), this actually serves as a safe lower bound. In both crash scenarios, the US allocation would have naturally decreased relative to international stocks. Since heavy US allocations performed
“This strategy seems reasonable at first, but it's actually much more risky than you'd think, assuming you follow it to the letter (which, thankfully, you probably won't). First we need to acknowledge that even if a 3.4% constant dollar withdrawal rate succeeds in 100% of historical return sequences, that does not mean there is zero risk. We could very well see a return sequence worse than those in your lifetime. Thinking more long term, it's very *un*likely that the worst time to retire in the 1000-year range of 1900-2900 happens in 1966. Is the chance of failure small? Sure. But it's not 0. And then we need to look at your ratcheting effect. By resetting your withdrawal rate based on new portfolio values every year, you're essentially re-rolling the dice on your success rate. Say you're set to retire in 2028. Maybe the return sequences starting in 2028, 2029, and 2030 all result in success under a constant 3.7% withdrawal rate strategy, but the 2031 cohort happens to be ”