06/05/2026
"I was always taught to prioritize growth over anything else".
I'm paraphrasing, but this was the point a client recently made during a call where we discussed preparing their portfolio for retirement.
This individual had successfully invested in stocks for years and was skeptical of reducing that exposure even though the planning projections and broader retirement considerations supported it.
Having had this conversation many times now, I'm always struck by the fact that clients approaching retirement are often more hesitant to reduce equity exposure than clients who are already retired.
At first, that seems backwards but I completely understand why.
For many years, stocks represented progress. Wealth grew as markets advanced and most investment decisions were geared towards compounding, not reducing, that growth.
Now suddenly, we're discussing income, preservation, and risk management.
It's a completely different conversation and to many clients, that feels less like a portfolio adjustment and more like changing the rules of the game they've been winning for decades.
The challenge for me isn't figuring out the ideal retirement allocation. It's guiding clients through the psychological and behavioral transition from accumulating wealth, to now living off of it.
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