Retirees Should Still Have a Heavy Stock Allocation

I've seen a few articles like this recently: Retiring Into a Shaky Market? Think Long Term Anyway

I am always 100% equities with retirement savings, and always envisioned to continue to be heavily allocated in stocks through retirement.

The one thing that troubles me a little is really bad timing. Market goes down 40% the very year you retire. So this article makes two points that seem like good tweaks.

I like the buffer asset idea. Carve out a relatively small amount of your portfolio in cash. Then as the advisor says:

A really simple rule that I found works quite well and does just as well as more complicated rules, is that you just look at your portfolio balance on the date you retired. Whenever the current balance is less than that number, draw from the buffer asset. Otherwise, you withdraw from your portfolio. This is simple and works well.

I wish they would have given some guidance about how big the buffer should be. I'm going to say, enough to fund 2 leaner-than-ideal years.

I also like this idea:

Some retirement experts have found that an even more conservative mixture at retirement may be ideal. What they suggest next is counterintuitive, but underscores the long game that is the stock market: Instead of maintaining that lower allocation to stocks, they suggest you gradually increase it as you age.

So one thing that could imply is, starting to convert your buffer steadily to equities after, say, 5 years.