Meet with PWL Capital: https://pages.pwlcapital.com/en-ca/contact-us?utm_source=content&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=rationalreminder_yt Avoid Online Scams https://pwlcapital.com/stay-safe-online/ Ben Felix or any PWL employee will never reach out to you on social media platforms or WhatsApp to give financial advice. These are scammers trying to commit fraud. In this episode, we are joined by Jean-Pierre Aubry, Associate Director of Retirement Plans and Finance at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, for a research-driven conversation about retirement investing, financial advice, pension fund management, and inflation. Drawing from years of empirical research, Jean-Pierre shares insights into how households actually invest, how financial advisors shape portfolio decisions, and why investors often hold asset allocations that differ from their own stated preferences. We also examine the investment strategies of public pension plans, why their increasing reliance on alternative assets has largely failed to deliver superior performance, and the institutional forces driving those decisions. Finally, Jean-Pierre explains how inflation disproportionately affects retirees, why many households overreact during inflationary periods, and why understanding retirement risks—from market volatility to sequence of returns—is critical for long-term financial security. Timestamps: 0:00:00 Intro 0:07:44 The mission of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College 0:08:27 How investors’ own asset allocations compare to their desired allocations 0:11:42 Explaining the difference between desired and actual investor portfolios 0:14:08 The role of financial advisors for retirement investors 0:17:28 The amount of variation in investment recommendations for a given client profile 0:20:07 Explaining the variation in recommended stock allocations across advisors 0:24:38 How financial advisors’ recommendations impact their clients 0:29:01 Defining TDFs 0:30:28 The effect advisors and TDFs have on retirement security 0:31:54 How public pension plans typically approach asset allocation 0:44:09 The approach JP took to evaluating the performance of pension funds relative to index funds 0:51:05 How JP's findings on pension fund performance compare to other research on this topic 0:58:25 The main practical takeaways from this research 1:03:31 The effect inflation generally has on older households 1:08:12 How this effect varies across the age and wealth distribution 1:10:52 How households tend to respond to inflation 1:13:06 The effect inflation has on households’ asset allocations 1:13:31 How financial advisors’ recommendations change in the face of inflation 1:14:26 The biggest takeaways from this research on how inflation affects the retirement security of households 1:15:35 The retirees market risk is most relevant for 1:16:56 How aware retirees are of the importance of sequence of returns risk 1:17:33 How aware financial advisors are of the importance of sequence of returns risk 1:19:20 How asset allocation should generally change over the lifecycle to deal with market risk 1:20:26 How important input from financial advisors for building sensible lifecycle asset allocations is 1:20:59 JP defines success in his life 1:22:41 Disclaimer Links From Today’s Episode: Rational Reminder on iTunes — https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-rational-reminder-podcast/id1426530582. Rational Reminder on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/rationalreminder/ Rational Reminder on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/ Benjamin Felix — https://pwlcapital.com/our-team/ Benjamin on X — https://x.com/benjaminwfelix Benjamin on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminwfelix/