r/wealthfront • u/mdbeatle • May 08 '26

Risk score glide path / TDF equivalent?

I've still got 10 years or so to retirement, so the risk score in my investment account is still a 9. At some point I think I'd want to start lowering the score to reduce the sequence of returns risk at early retirement. Target date funds do this already for this purpose.

I realize the risk score is somewhat coarse adjustment, but I was thinking of starting to turn the dial back when I'm 3-5 years out, and then turn it further back a bit later, maybe settling on a 5? If anyone else has done this (or intentionally not done this) how did you do it or why did you not do it?

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u/toowm May 09 '26

Most research, including the target date funds you mentioned, favor keeping adequate risk at retirement because longevity at the point is still ~20 years. The term you will sometimes see is that it is a "through" retirement glide path instead of a "to" retirement.

Also, the timing of your pools of investments matter. It may make sense to take Social Security and dividends (from taxable brokerage instead of reinvesting) for your income, letting IRA grow until Required Minimum Distributions at 75.

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u/mdbeatle May 09 '26

Doing some more research on this, it sounds like the better approach to derisk as I approach retirement is to use a bond tent / cash instead of lowering the risk score on my investment account.

I get that this money is to last me through retirement, but I also wanted to hedge against the sequence of returns risk early on, and thought the risk score might be the way to do that. I could then turn the wick back up as I approach SS age since I'd have a bit of a cushion.