How do you manage your investments in retirement when you’re drawing an income from them? The eminent American economist William Sharpe called the “decumulation” problem facing retirees the “nastiest, hardest problem in finance”. He noted that the accumulation (pre-retirement) phase is one dimensional: it concerns the probability of one outcome, which is the capital value of your savings at a known retirement date.
The decumulation phase, when you draw an income from savings accumulated, has multiple dimensions: “the probability of income and capital every year of a 30-year-plus retirement”. In retirement, you also don’t have
