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Interesting as always @TA, thanks for this. Having some dry powder sitting in the ISA is difficult at the moment. Everything seems a risk. As always, certainty is a thing we cannot deal in. What I cannot see is a strong argument for anything in particular at the moment.
JimJim
@JimJim — Officially our first ever member comment. Thanks for subscribing. Will be interesting to see how discussions go behind the paywall, as obviously it’s a fraction of the total audience. (The BEST fraction 😉 )
As to your point, I agree things look uncertain and you can make a case for all assets. At least bonds are no longer stupidly low-yielding, and equity valuations have come down a fair bit. So a safer climate from that perspective, for medium to long-term investors. 🙂
And who knows, we may be dealing with falling rates within 12 months or so. The US bond market is already pricing that in over there. UK has stickier looking inflation though, for various reasons…
Maybe not a hugely popular suggestion in these parts but the steeply rising rates has made me pivot a large chunk of our monthly S&S ISA money into mortgage overpayments.
Possibly not optimum but the 4+% interest rate saving is guaranteed and the maths shows we can remove the mortgage burdon within 6-7 years
@ Ladsdad
I’ve too much mortgage and can access Sipps in 1.5 years – I’m hoping to get rid of the main mortgage over the next 2 years. 5% isn’t too shabby, and it comes with the added bonus of allowing me move house when I want to (no one will give a Firee a mortgage!)
Not sure I can divert ISA subscription though – unless it’s using the Finumus approach
Good luck
I have previously only read about this from a US perspective and it is interesting how much more extreme the movements were using UK (and European) data.
Agree that inflation is one of the most pressing concerns and I am pleased that we finally have a prime minister that sees reducing it as a priority. It is a bit worrying that members of the Conserpative Party thought so little of this compared with tax cuts, but we are where we are and I cannot see us returning to inflationary madness this side of the election. With energy prices coming down I am hopeful that inflation will to.
The comment on WW1 was important IMHO. When we focus on one aspect, such as inflation, it is worth remembering that other things can be very important as well. Of the “Known” problems, climate change and all that comes with it seem like the elephant in the room to me compared with short term blips in energy costs and inflation. Not something where we can see what happened before!
@TA thanks for the post.
I can’t help wondering if and when it is worth extending duration on the fixed income portion of the portfolio given we appear to be nearing long term averages. I’m thinking mainly in the context of the drawdown phase, locking in the yield for longer.
I realise this is just another case of market timing, so should probably look away.
I would be interested to hear what duration you are set at in drawdown (inc. cash at zero)?
The McClung book looks to quote bond funds that are ~5 years.
Maybe another one for the deaccumulation list…
I didn’t understand a thing. I look forward to a few years time when I have learnt enough to understand. Keeping up with TI/TA and the comments is so much better for keeping a person sharp than ‘brain training’.
@The Hare — Eek, sorry to hear that! (Though appreciate you enjoy the brain training. Believe me, mine needs it too!) Is there anything we can help with? I’ve wondered sometimes about adding a TLDR-type summary box near the top, but it feels a bit formal for our conversational style.
@TI It’s fine. However much any of us know, there is always stuff we need to learn. That’s why we’re here, to learn from others.
Great article as always, not sure if this is delving into the subject too much, but how would expect different equity sectors to behave with rising inflation. For example commodities, ie (metals),Copper, Lithium, Gold
All interesting stuff (sounds sarcastic, but isn’t!), but as a near-40 year old, who sadly only started seriously investing about 4 years ago, I don’t really have an alternative other than ploughing all my cash into equities, and hoping that history will find me on the right side – eventually, albeit I may need to wait a few years for compounding to hit.
@Flapster, you are doing the right thing IMHO, unless you want to try your luck at market timing. I look upon the article more in terms of expectation management. Expect lower returns when inflation is rising than falling. To mitigate that risk you could try to save more and likewise for us decumulators, we could consider that in the future we may not be able to spend as much as we would have under different circumstances. No need to batten down the hatches AFAIAC, but just be aware that the likelihood of below average returns has increased.
From my point of view, the key positive about the rise in bond yields is that annuity rate has almost doubled since the start of 2020, pre-COVID. The UK CPI linked annuity rate for a 55-year-old is now 3%. It was a miserable 1.6% prior to COVID.
For the same amount of capital, you now get 90% more cashflow.
I see the annuity rate as in many ways the best measure of the SWR. FIRE blogs are full of wishful thinking when it comes to the SWR. They say markets are efficient, but when the market provides an efficiently determined price that doesn’t suit them, they ignore it and instead use cherry-picked historical back tests. Never mind strange conversations about reverse equity glidepaths and tax harvesting. Yes, annuity rates have fees but it’s (pseudo) risk free and the the S in SWR is supposed to stand for “Safe”. Prior to 2022, I thought most FIRE blogs were deluded to think that the UK SWR was 3%+. Now it is 3%. No argument. I can buy it.
So, I think 2022 was a great year for those looking to retire. Markets had been stuck in purgatory for over a decade. Yes, for some, the trip may have involved a bit of a detour through Hell. Long-end linkers were clobbered by the rise in real yields. Moreover, 0-1% is not exactly Heaven but it’s a lot better than -2%. Back to something much closer to normality.
So, you may not feel that happy about 2022 but just stop looking at the capital value of the asset side. What matters is your ability to hedge your future retirement in a safe way and the price of that has almost halved. From that angle, given your portfolio almost certainly hasn’t halved, you are now better off. If I take my portfolio, on a unitized basis, it’s up over 110% since the start of 2020. Add to that the change in annuity rates and I’m looking at almost 4x the cashflow if I wanted to annuitize.
I’m not old enough to annuitize and it’s not clear how much I would want to do. Nonetheless, I’m mulling over whether the big risk here is bond yields falling, pushing down annuity rates again. To forward hedge that risk, I’d need to buy long duration bonds. Wonder how many people are doing that. Very very few I expect.
It would appear a major financial correction is now in progress
Inflation and interest rates on the rise but all the bankers financial tools are used up
QE now also being drastically reigned in
A recession of variable severity will cure all problems but be very tough on the poorer sections of society -again and as always
Hopefully muddling through will be in fact what happens -hopefully!
xxd09
@ZXSpectrum48k – interesting observation about using annuity rates as a guide for SWR. Firstly, do you know if annuity rates have historically tracked failsafe SWRs as calculated via backtesting with historical data (that sounds like a question for @TA!)? Secondly, I would have thought you’d pay a hefty premium for the safety of an annuity, when compared to a DIY portfolio approach? In which case, directly copying annuity rates might perhaps be too conservative for a DIY investor looking to choose a SWR?
@ JimJim – Cheers! Nice to get this membership thing kicked off, and amazing for TI and I to receive such wonderful support.
@ Ade – I hold about 10% cash and 20% intermediate gilts. I’ve stopped calculating duration and think about the holdings in broader strategic terms instead.
Cash for liquidity / lack of volatility / and I can generally get a decent interest rate because I shop around.
Intermediate gilts for anti-recession protection. I’m not courageous enough to dive into long bonds like ZX but there’s a reasonable proportion of them in my intermediate fund. It took an absolute hammering in 2022 but I don’t think it’s inevitable that yields keep rising as per the 1970s. I think most of the comparisons drawn between today and the stagflation era are superficial at best.
@ Naeclue – I agree, how can we predict anything when an event like a Sino-US war over Taiwan, or breakthrough in AI capability could take all bets off the table and then smash up the table? My only defence against uncertainty is to hedge against all possibilities using the assets available. You’re spot on though that the key conclusion from the article is we probaby face headwinds so prepare to dig deeper to get the results you want. It’s one of the reasons I’m keeping a bit of pocket money trickling in despite retirement.
@ ZX – I wish I could force myself to buy long bonds but I just can’t. Too scary. My intermediate fund fudge will have to do. Will be interested to hear what you do though, as ever. Wade Pfau was the only person I saw really banging the drum for ratcheting down SWR expectations in a low yield world. I guess McClung and ERN alluded to it with their P/E modifiers that accounted for diminished SWR expectations when markets are expensive. Much as I am kinda traumatised by 2022, I try to keep in mind those long-run graphs showing my bond returns rising as real yield increases. Your annuity formulation is even more salient so that helps update my thinking too.
@ LadsDad – I think there’s a psychological benefit to paying down the mortgage that’s well worth the asking price.
@ JohnP – Thank you. I am planning articles on gold and commodities in the near future. Found some excellent sources of long-run data that help show how useful those asset classes were against inflation.
@ Flapster – I came late to the investing game too and came to a similar conclusion. Things worked out OK. Good luck with your journey!
Can I make a little suggestion? It would be nice when reading articles to have it visually flagged at the top of the page that this is a ‘maven’ article – people might like to know that THIS is the content they are paying for. The branding team that sit next to me at work would be proud of me for thinking of this… but you might hate the suggestion!
Thanks, loving my membership already purely from a ‘belonging’ sense.
@wodger. Annuity rates went up because real yields went up (hence linkers got hammered). Real yield rises are related to asset price falls (more discounting). So historical SWRs will be related to real yields. Starting valuations can matter. It’s a tenuous relationship though. One is a traded market product. The other is a backtest subject to all the usual survival biases. Check out someone like Cederberg for another take on the 4% rule and long-term equity returns.
If you build a portfolio of risky assets you will, on average, get a better result than something that is pseudo risk free like annuity. The problem you get one life, not a million to average over. Path dependency matters. The majority of paths will leave you with too much, a minority with too little. A few totally ruined. If you need to hedge the risk of ruin then annuities are just one option to do that.
The insurer takes a decent fee on an annuity but the price of something is the price of its replicating hedge. If I can’t build an index gilt ladder to get me more than 3%, and it hedges the risk I want, is it really expensive? I just spent 15k on renovating a small en-suite. It feels very expensive but I couldn’t have done it myself and if it gets one of my bloody children out of my shower then it’s done the job.
To be honest no one in FIREland will ever buy annuities or long duration bonds. The sample skew is toward optimists and hubris. Moreover, 3% is not value. It is, however, viable. At 1.6% you had no choice but to go DIY. You now have a choice. I see that as a positive.
@Money Mountaineer — Interesting idea, I’ll chat about it with ‘the team’. (i.e. Myself, and a “you do you” from @TA 😉 )
@ZXSpectrum48K — Really good comment, I’ve only seen that perspective flagged a couple of times in, like, 18 months of rising rates. Need to think about this more deeply before synthesizing some kind of post.
@all — Cheers for the other comments! Leaving @TA to speak his mind on his post though 🙂
@ Money Mountaineer – I think that’s an excellent idea. +1 from me.
I think it was Warren Buffet who said investors with a long time horizon should wish for a period of poor stock market near the beginning of their investing journey or words to that effect.
With 30+ years to go until traditional retirement it sounds good and I’m salary sacrificing into my pension but presently it feels like job worries, inflation worries, mortgage worries, only one parent working worries… Here’s hoping the long term game pans out.
Also been a reader since 2018 but never commented so feels good to join the community .
@ZXSpectrum48K – thanks, that makes sense!
Thanks, ZX and others, for the annuity comments – to me, they’re a helpful reminder to view the DB part of my plan from different perspectives.
Finumus made a similar argument to ZX about annuities equivalence to SWR. Lots of interesting comments critiquing the argument too.
https://www.finumus.com/blog/low-interest-rates-and-the-safe-withdrawal-rate-swr
First ever comment as a member having been a keen reader of Monevator for years typically on a Sunday morning with a coffee. Great article and love the line…”Having dug into the data, it’s not rising interest rates per se that I fear. It’s inflation levels that feed a spiral of escalating yields because the market consistently underestimates how bad things can get”.
Balanced passive portfolio is typically the right answer but even then I fear its still going to be a roller coaster ahead with how the market reacts to uncertainty. Looking forward to future posts (and the comments from the community) to see if we can help each other.
Thanks for the comments about annuities. I’m too young (40s) to be doing that but since I’m disabled it does restrict options somewhat. Especially since the default assumption is pension annuity rates and I have a mere £3.6k pa allowance to put into a pension. I only even know about purchased annuities because of a post on Monevator. There are very few options when a person is unexpectedly clabbered by not being able to earn money in a job/business way from one’s 30s and contrary to popular belief, often there is no state support/state pension in that scenario. So a piece on purchased annuities would be helpful, especially with all the rising interest rates in their various forms.
@ Hare – I didn’t know that State Pension benefits were curtailed by being unable to work due to disability. That is bloody awful. Here’s a couple of links that I found helpful when researching Purchased Life Annuities
https://www.mandg.com/pru/adviser/en-gb/insights-events/insights-library/purchase-life-annuity?utm_source=legacyurls&utm_medium=301&utm_campaign=/knowledge-literature/knowledge-library/purchase-life-annuity/
https://www.sharingpensions.co.uk/pension_annuity8.htm
I usually rebalance my SIPP portfolio in April but it was delayed as away on holiday. Anyway, rebalanced yesterday and it was emotionally difficult to sell some gold and equities to top up long dated gilts to required percentage – but I did it. I am mentally preparing for having the same queasy feeling when it comes to rebalancing the ISA portfolio in October. It is exactly the same asset allocation as the SIPP. Got to stick to the plan and think long term.
DrexL
Annuities are very much back on our agenda. We have toyed with them for years but the issue has primarily been about value for money. There is a secondary issue as well in that our SIPPs are an important part of our IHT mitigation strategy.
There has always been a hole in our decumulation strategy involving a 1970s style scenario. High inflation coupled with really poor investment returns that grind on for many years. The scenario has been taken into consideration in our plans by having a multi-year cash buffer and a strategy that does not involve disposals when the market is down in real terms, but it is not bullet proof and such a scenario would still be very unpleasant while it played out. Our plan B is belt tightening and falling back on property assets (let, disposal and/or downsizing), but indexed linked annuities are an ideal addition for mitigating this risk, provided the price is right.
Annuities are certainly better value now, but there is another important new consideration. We fully crystallised our SIPPs several years ago just below our LTAs and have not drawn much since, currently not drawing at all. Consequently we were on target for a 25% charge on growth when we reach 75, or a 25% charge on annuity purchase. That charge has been abolished, effectively boosting our personal annuity rates even more.
The plan would be to buy annuities, but to direct the taxable income stream to charity for the moment as we don’t need it. The annuities would then add to our plan B.
Still lots of I’s to cross, T’s to dot, not least how much to annuitise, but with Labour threatening to reverse the LTA change this feels like another of those use it or lose it opportunities.
@TA “@ Hare – I didn’t know that State Pension benefits were curtailed by being unable to work due to disability.”
No expert, but I do not think this is the case. I have a disabled relative who receives Employment and Support Allowance and I am fairly certain that entitles him to NI credits. The benefits system is an absolute dogs breakfast though, worse in many aspects than the tax system, so there could well be all sorts of caveats around who is entitled to NI credits.
Put my mum onto an index-linked annuity and she’s never regretted it. Also, gives her a real thirst for life as she doesn’t want to snuff it before getting her money back 🙂
@Money Mountaineer
+1 vote from me
It would be good to clearly see what content is premium for subscribers. Even subconsciously it may stop some people cancelling their subscriptions after a while.
For me it was a pleasure being able to contribute after years learning loads from this site, which changed and improved my retirement plans (after initially coming here just from google for a quick check of the broker costs comparison article).
@ZXSpectrum48K
WRT annuities, I would say that probably a combination of approaches would work best for most people. For example in my case, as an unsophisticated investor, my plan will be to cover my basic living expenses with a combination of:
– State pension
– Small defined benefit pension (around half the state pension)
– Annuity
I can then SWR at whatever (3.5%?) with what is left in the pot, statistically it should provide with the luxuries in life. If unlucky then at least I won’t be destitute.
Just subscribed (Mogul). 1st & only site ever paid up for. Glad to do so after 15+ years enjoying the excellent content here, which is a head above the rest of the financial blogosphere.
Wondered if it might be possible to use the available historic long term government bond yield and equity return data for the US, UK and other DMs to do a Monte Carlo simulation to get an idea of the probabilities for equity return outcome ranges under different bond yield regimes? That would be interesting to see.
Does anyone know if and by how much DB commutation factors might be affected in relation to rising interest rates and cheaper annuities?
I FIRE’d at 50 in 2021 and a part of my stage 2 retirement plan had been to take my DB pension at 55 and commute the maximum amount into tax-free PCLS to feed into ISAs for longer-term tax-free withdrawal alongside my DCs. My rationale was based on minimising whole-life income tax on my pension income/drawdowns via actuarially reducing (/lengthening) and commutating my DB pension.
Of course, this plan may not survive contact with the next government or even the next budget as it requires some level of stability in ISAs, PCLS, income tax, pension ages etc. but it could also be blown off course if a fall in commutation factors significantly reduced the amount of cash I would get per £1 of pension given up…
@Mezzanine, I have an unvested DB pension and found out that its commutation rate had changed fairly recently from 23 to 19. I’m sure you could ask the scheme to confirm its current rate (which will be particular to the scheme and pension terms).
@ Mezzanine
Last time I looked mine were down 15% a couple of months ago – not sure if 15 year gilts are the key driver rather than base rates.
My DB administrator has good online tools now – I can see all my options 55-60+ in terms of PCLS, commutation factors (implied), actuarial reduction etc. do you have online tools, I’d be interested in what movement you’ve seen in cash v pension sacrifice
@Boltt, I have a tool which allow me to plug in my leavers statement and move some sliders but it’s aimed at commuting expected pension for lump sum at NRA. There’s another which helps with actuarial reduction but only at the default PCLS. I’ve fudged things by using them sequentially but I can’t rely on the results.
However, they do have early retirement and commutation factor numbers available for manual calculation here: https://www.uss.co.uk/for-members/calculate-your-benefits/factors-used-by-uss
@JP, the factors may not have been updated for 2023 and I’ll check with the administrator but since my benefits are pre-2022, the currently published factor at 55 appears to be 25.465.
What I’m most concerned with is the potential for change during the next 3 years as I can’t crystalise the pot until at least 2026…
Just posting to test out my new membership badge. I’ve lurked here for years, but felt it the right time to sign up…
Thoughts…
I agree with the need to show what’s a members only article, I could see what-was-paid as a free member, but not now I’ve paid up!
I think I’ve more willingness to comment and engage with the discussion in the paid posts – feels like it’s a little private community, and hopefully less open to the mad people of the internet.
Perhaps, just perhaps, this could lead to a forum or discussion area. I see Memberful offers approval to Discord and other community sites. Could be a good place for safe discussion of naughty-active ideas, and not spamming/pushing stocks, but I guess the cost to enter might not put off scammers.
I’d love to share a “Here’s where I am” on my FI journey post and have the membership rip me apart / suggest course corrections. Might be more likely to do that in a less public setting. Perhaps the member profile/interviews could carry on as part of this side of the paywall…
Good luck – you deserve a success from this.
Thanks for the reply @TA.
I also want to hold cash or cash-like assets mainly for that psychological comfort effect (thanks to @TI for the ERNS Ultrashort fund tip – 4.8% YTM at the mo).
However, if I recall a suggestion from ZX(?) in a comment a while back, this is essentially a ‘barbell’ fixed income portfolio. Mixing cash and an intermediate gilt fund like iShares ILGT (~9 yr duration) with the 1:2 ratio brings it back to ~6 years duration.
This might seem pedantic, but I’m toying with the idea of using longer duration bond funds to adjust it to a target. I’m just not certain of is what the target should be.
The best I can think of is to try and match the back tests used by McClung etc. The US Treasuries funds he quotes are ~5 years, so not far off.
The other thing I’ve noticed is that if for example you hold a 60/40 portfolio and draw 4%, you are holding 10 years of spending in the fixed income portion. With a sort of ‘bonds first’ drawdown model like McClung’s, does this dictate the ideal duration of 5.4 using the 2x -1 guidance – or am I going completely mad here!?
I’m currently holding too much cash due to some inheritance and will receive a redundancy payment in the next few months, so I’ve got a decision to make soon on how to set the stall out, particularly at the fixed income end. It’s a kind of forced market timing event including starting drawdown.
The other argument in my head is if I can ‘lock in’ the current yield with longer duration funds, due to the way things have played out, betting that ~4% YTM is good enough as a starting point. Still not sure how long though.
Sorry this has turned into a giant brain burp, but I’d be very grateful for any suggestions that can help me untangle this.
Ade-do I understand you are about to start Drawdown-if so…..
You need to set your Asset Allocation-70/30 to 30/70-equities/bonds
The great John Bogle finally set himself at 50/50 as he couldn’t decide and needed to make a decision to get started!
Some Investors also hold 2-5 years living expenses in cash -3.3% available currently on instant access and instant access ISA accounts
Avoids selling equities or bonds in a downturn-like just now!
A U.K. investor would probably hold a global equity index tracker or equivalent plus a global bond fund hedged to the pound (Vanguard,s Global Bond Index fund has bonds of an approximately 6 years duration )
That’s it
xxd09
I note that most blogs have a time limited editing ability added to the post for a s spelling mistake or grammatical error noticed immediately after posting
Is this something that could be added or is there some reason for not adopting what seems to be a common practice ?
xxd09
@ Ade – re: 2x -1 duration guidance – it only applies to obtain approx today’s yield-to-maturity on your bond holding if you continually reinvest any income and don’t drawdown on it in the meantime. It’s also doesn’t tell us anything about how inflation is impacting your real return.
This kind of duration matching isn’t useful for retirement. I’ve got a couple of posts in the works about duration matching, but it’s better to think about your volatility comfort levels than a duration target, I reckon.
That 5-6 duration you’ve come up with (approx the same as xxd09 notes for the Global Bond index fund) strikes me as a reasonably moderate one for a decumulator.
Ultimately, it comes down to how much volatility you’re prepared to take. Short durations mean low volatility in your bond portfolio. Long durations mean more.
Volatility in the bond portfolio is a good thing if bond returns spike during a recession.
Volatility is a bad thing if interest rates keep rising and batter your bonds when you want to be drawing down on them over the next decade.
A duration 6 fund likely won’t spike that much during a market crash but it won’t get crucified like long bonds if yields keep spiralling.
I can see the sense in using a proportion of the portfolio to go long. I just don’t have the courage to do it. I know I’ll kick myself if I have to keep watching it being atomised by inflation. Maybe I could do it with 10% of the portfolio, I’ll need to think on that.
Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go 30:70 equities:bonds but it depends on your time horizon and risk tolerance. Sounds like you’re all over McClung and he’s very good on this aspect.
As I say, your instinctive calculation, corroborated by xxd09, is a good compromise, especially if you want to keep things simple.
The barbell is a more complex way of getting to a similar place but with more nuance. It does appeal to me as I like to see the moving parts and think of my portfolio in broad strategic terms.
@ KISS – thank you for that lovely comment. TI and I are both thrilled to see so many readers commenting for the first time. I think I’m right in saying that we’re likely to keep the decumulation version of the Slow & Steady portfolio as a member’s only series, so maybe that’ll be a useful setting for you to post your FI journey thoughts. Otherwise, my two year FIRE anniversary post is coming up. I’m always amazed by how supportive everyone is on those threads, so you may find it worth venturing a comment there. I find it hard to share my private self too, but, at least in this corner of the internet, it always turns out to be a positive experience.
Thanks so much for both of your responses – much appreciated.
I’m probably looking for precision where it is not necessary or is an illusion.
So forget duration matching in deaccumulation – got it, thanks. I’ve not been able to find much on this specific topic.
The other reason I like the idea of using a mixture of bond funds to bend the duration and volatility as you say, is that I can say to myself and the other half, it’s ok, we’ve got 2/3 years expenses in hard cash, all the while bringing it back to the target at the other end. I know this is mostly mental accounting, however I think managing the emotional human aspect is going to be equally important to the maths and logic.
I’m fully signed up to the passive approach regarding indexing and broad aggregate funds, however after reading the Howard Marks book “Mastering the Market Cycle” a couple of years ago, I think knowing roughly where we are in the longer market cycles or at least not being completely blind to it is still something I want to do. Tweaking the % dials rather than tactical trading on sectors and the like.
The low interest rate environment certainly changed my behaviour (carried a bunch more cheap mortgage debt than ‘needed’), I feel the same thing now, big change in the weather re rates. Will there be a big shift away from riskier assets taking the lower risk yield now on offer – certainly going to be interesting.
Completely agree. If we think of this kind of tweaking as a rational way to manage the human more than an iron-clad way to optimise return then it helps manage expectation.
@xxd09 — Re: comment editing with a time limit, I agree it’s worth looking at this again. Will investigate. Cheers!
@Money Mountaineer @Dodex @others — We’ve made a tweak to the bylines so it now shows when articles are for Mavens and Moguls (or in future, just for Moguls). Hope this helps and thanks for the suggestion! 🙂
Hey TA, thanks for the article. Also Hey TI, just saying thanks both for the great content over the years. Happy to become a Maven .
On the subject of bonds, I myself am very much still heavily weighted to a 60/40 classic split although for the past 2 years I have been investing in a 80% equity flavour as I still have 14 years to go until true FI as I have evolved my FIRE pursuit along my journey. There has certainly been a lot of bashing of bonds over the last few years especially with how they performed more recently but I still feel that investing broadly in both the major companies and governments of the world (investing in humanity) is still in the long run, the wise option. I try to stay well clear of attempting to time the market even when it comes to bond allocations, albeit tempting as it can be sometimes.
Look forward to your future articles as always!
TFJ