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August 31, 2026
There is no single right answer, but many retiring clients hold roughly two to eight years of planned withdrawals in low-volatility assets. That buffer exists so a mandatory 4% withdrawal never has to come out of a fund that has just fallen.
Retirement withdrawal strategies in Ireland come with a fear that freezes people: retiring while markets sit at an all-time high. Should you? The record level feels dangerous, but it is not the risk that actually decides your outcome.
In this episode, Paddy asks whether retiring at an all-time high is really the risk Irish savers fear, or whether the thing that decides your outcome is something else entirely.
What you'll learn:
• Why all-time highs are common, not a warning: global equities sit at or near record highs on roughly a third of trading days
• What Japan's lost decades really warn against: concentration in one market, not equities themselves
• A sequence-of-returns case study: how two retirees with the same €1.2m and the same average return finished €1.25m apart
• The Irish nuance: why Revenue's imputed distribution makes the buffer inside your ARF matter more than any market call
If you're within a couple of years of drawing down, and the timing has you worried, this episode is for you.
📖 Blog: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/should-i-retire-at-all-time-highs-ireland
📊 Want to check where you are? Try our free 10-minute Retirement Readiness Scorecard: www.informeddecisions.ie/pension-calculator
📅 Find out how we work: https://www.informeddecisions.ie/our-process
The Nikkei 225 fell about 82% from its December 1989 peak and took until February 2024 to recover. The lesson is about concentration in one market, not about equities. A globally diversified investor kept compounding through those decades.
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