Sibylle Greindl
22 Jun 2026
The 60/40 portfolio: a strategy from the last century?
Over the past decades, the answer to the question “how should I invest for retirement” was clear and simple: choose a portfolio made up of 60% stocks and 40% bonds, withdraw 4% per year, and that portfolio should supplement your income throughout retirement. This model, developed in the United States in the 1990s, spread as the standard balanced portfolio model.
Today, certain underlying trends are forcing the next generation to ask an uncomfortable question: what if this model was designed for a world that no longer really exists?
What is the 60/40 portfolio?
This portfolio, made up of 60% stocks and 40% bonds, with the 4% rule governing annual withdrawals, is supposed to provide income throughout an entire retirement.
Its origins go back to 1994, the year American financial advisor William Bengen analyzed the history of financial markets and reached a conclusion that would leave a lasting mark: an initial withdrawal of around 4% from a diversified portfolio, then adjusted each year for inflation, could generate a stable income stream throughout retirement.
A few years later, Trinity University in Texas confirmed these results by simulating different stock and bond portfolios and concluding that balanced portfolios offered the best chances of success.
That is how the combination that would become the norm gradually emerged: a portfolio made up mainly of stocks for growth, and bonds for stability.
Why add bonds to your portfolio?
The 60/40 portfolio also rests on another core idea: when stocks fall, bonds can help stabilize the portfolio.
However, recent analyses by the European Central Bank show that when inflation rises, stocks and bonds can move in the same direction. That is exactly what happened in 2022, when stocks and bonds declined simultaneously.
In addition, the golden age of the 60/40 portfolio coincided with decades marked by relatively moderate inflation and falling interest rates. In the 1990s, bonds yielded between 5% and 8%. That is no longer the case today.
The coming decades could offer a very different environment from that of the 1990s and the decades that followed and could call the relevance of the 60/40 portfolio into question.
How many years does retirement last?
Its duration varies from one person to another, but it is increasing and now exceeds twenty, and sometimes even thirty, years.
Indeed, the estimates published by the Belgian Federal Planning Bureau in February 2026 project an average life expectancy of 90 years for women and 89 years for men by 2080. At the same time, the share of people over 80 among those aged over 67 is increasing sharply.
It is worth keeping in mind that this is only an average: some people will live fewer than 90 years, others much longer. Reaching 100 years of age will no longer be exceptional by 2080, and retirement length will increase accordingly. Planning retirement over thirty years rather than twenty is fundamentally different.
Public pensions under pressure, private capital needed
Our pension system, funded by those who are currently working, relies on a balance that is becoming increasingly fragile: the proportion of retirees relative to people of working age will continue to rise. The Federal Planning Bureau estimates that there will be 46 people aged at least 67 for every 100 people of working age, aged 18 to 66, compared with 28 today.
This demographic shift will place greater pressure on public finances, which will have to bear nearly double the pension spending, even though they are already heavily indebted. In that context, it is unlikely that the current level of public pensions can be maintained in the future.
As a result, private savings will play an increasingly important role in preserving living standards in retirement.
In short, investing today for a retirement that will still be enjoyed over such a long-time horizon means rethinking the parameters of the equation.
How should you structure your retirement portfolio?
To structure your portfolio in retirement, you need to take into account the different variables in the equation:
- The capital available at the start of retirement: a fixed variable,
- The income to be drawn from the portfolio: the amount needed each month to supplement a public pension,
- The length of retirement: an unknown,
- The return on capital: a variable that depends on how aggressive or conservative the portfolio allocation is.
Today, the return of the 60/40 portfolio has fallen. At the same time, the length of retirement is set to increase, and the income needed from the portfolio will also have to rise to offset a decline in public pensions.
Assuming that the available capital is fixed, and with no control over either retirement length or the amount of the public pension, the only variable that can really be adjusted is asset allocation, which will have a decisive impact on the return of a given portfolio.
A retiree today has every reason to consider a portfolio with a more dynamic allocation, in order to generate an income stream that can help maintain their standard of living throughout retirement.
Admittedly, that involves taking on more risk. However, the high level of diversification in an Easyvest portfolio guarantees the prudent character of this investment. Investing with Easyvest means investing in 99% of the global stock market, which is a long way from putting all your eggs in one basket.
Why the first years of retirement matter so much
When retirement lasts longer and one opts for a more dynamic portfolio, the health of the stock market in the first years of retirement becomes particularly important.
If markets fall at the very moment withdrawals begin to finance expenses, those withdrawals can amplify the impact of the decline. The invested capital then falls more quickly, and any market recovery starts from a lower base. Conversely, a stock market in very strong shape can create a far more favourable starting point.
Our income portfolio simulations take these different scenarios into account, from a market behaving normally to one performing exceptionally well or exceptionally poorly.
Here, you can visualize the impact on your monthly income and on the inheritance you could leave, depending on your stock market exposure and on market conditions.
The real revolution in investing is demographic
Should the 60/40 portfolio be buried for good? Not necessarily, but it is important to take into account that retirement investing is increasingly becoming very long-term investing, where stocks deserve a larger place.
Over such long periods, the assets that have historically created the most long-term wealth are stocks. When globally diversified, they allow investors to invest in thousands of companies across every continent and every sector, in other words in the growth of the global economy itself.
That is precisely the principle of index investing.
Rather than trying to predict which companies or markets will outperform, the idea is simply to stay invested in the global economy as a whole, at low cost, and to let time do its work, because time is the most powerful ally of the long-term investor.
This simple, robust, and disciplined strategy is the DNA of Easyvest: a strategy for this century, in which we are living longer and longer.