Retired Money

By Jonathan Chevreau on September 30, 2025
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

By Jonathan Chevreau on September 30, 2025
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

The state of the U.S. equity market has advisors and Retirement Club members downgrading their outlook for stock returns. Here's where recent retirees should consider putting their money.

While working people may envy those at or near retirement, once you get there there’s a certain amount of anxiety over markets and the prospect of outliving your money should stocks and interest rates fail to cooperate.

Of course, those with guaranteed-for-life, taxpayer-backed, defined benefit pension plans may well be in an enviable position. I often wonder why the usual media financial profiles of senior couples even bother when their subjects both enjoy such pensions.

Sadly, most of us are not in such a fortunate position. We may have cobbled together a couple of small private-sector pensions over the years, but for the most part what wealth we have is in RRSPs/RRIFs, TFSAs and non-registered savings, which rise and fall with financial markets. From what I see at the new Retirement Club (which I wrote about in this space this past summer) most of those in the so-called retirement risk zone realize they are in effect their own pension managers, which means paying close attention to the markets.

Retirement Club co-founder Dale Roberts posted a typically anxious commentary on a recent The Globe and Mail column by Dr. Norman Rothery, CFA. Rothery, a celebrated value-stock picker who runs the StingyInvestor.com site, suggested the current environment of Trump-inspired tariffs and global trade wars is causing plenty of anxiety for this group. In the link, summarized as “With today’s market, investors close to retirement face precarious times,” Rothery said investors on the cusp of retirement are “facing peril from a combination of the unusually lofty U.S. stock market and political uncertainty that’s disrupting world trade.”

The U.S. stock market is “trading at worrying levels,” based on several value factors, Rothery said: the S&P 500 Index is “trading at a cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio near 39—above its peak of 33 in 1929 and approaching its top of 44 in late 1999, based on monthly data. Similarly the index’s price-to-sales ratio is approaching its 1999 high. A broader composite measure that includes many different

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