Kitces & Pfau

[AtlasShrugged]

I'm curious as to what the consensus thinking is on Michael Kitces and Wade Pfau in this forum. Useful advice or not? What's your opinion?

 

[MichaelB]

I'm curious as to what the consensus thinking is on Michael Kitces and Wade Pfau in this forum. Useful advice or not?

Consensus and forum are two words that are not often found in the same sentence.

What's your opinion?

What's yours?

 

[AtlasShrugged]

I like guys like John Bogle, Warren Buffett, and Charlie Munger. I find Kitces and Pfau a touch too academic for my tastes, but maybe I'm missing something. I'd like to hear what others have to say.

 

[walkinwood]

Kitces is a practitioner. Pfau is an academic.

 

[medved]

I find what they write interesting. (But maybe a part of that is I am interested in economics anyway and I find the field of behavioral finance -- an effort to meld traditional economic/finance theory with principles of cognitive psychology -- to be interesting).

 

[Whisper66]

I've read several Pfau articles and listened to several interviews. For my particular interests, I found him a bit too conservative and academic.

Haven't read enough of Kitches to have much of an opinion. The couple articles I read were referenced by others on this board and generally I found them interesting but they haven't changed anything I was currently doing.

 

[GrayHare]

Kitces appears to be unafraid to challenge the conventional wisdom, then backs up his arguments with research and data. I like many of his efforts.

 

[bmcgonig]

I find them both very interesting. There really aren't many prolific writers and researchers that deal with the decumulation phase, so that's why I read them a lot. They always seem to back up their opinions with research. The latest thing I see Pfau talking about is research that shows that using a reverse mortgage line of credit as a standby to draw on in case of down years, increases portfolio survival considerably. Not something I would have though about myself. Pfau is definitely more conservative than Kitces.


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[Sycamore]

I browse Kitces web page every week. He targets his blog at CFPs often writing about practice management issues. However he often writes some very interesting and relevant particles for early retirees. His post on how the year 2000 and year 2008 retire are fairing using the four percent rule was interesting to me.

As Walkinwood mentioned Pfau is an academic, he's a professor of Retirement Income at the American College of Financial Services. He publishes widely in CFP journals, and has his own blog.

Pfau and Kitces published a paper on asset allocation strategies for retirees where they profile the benefits of starting with a lower stock allocation and moving that allocation higher as the retiree ages.

 

[Onward]

I read and respect both. Although I don't always agree with them, I would say that both influence my thinking on financing retirement.

 

[unclemick]

I read and respect both. Although I don't always agree with them, I would say that both influence my thinking on financing retirement.

Yes.

heh heh heh - although I don't read them perhaps as much as I could/should.

 

[audreyh1]

I'm curious as to what the consensus thinking is on Michael Kitces and Wade Pfau in this forum. Useful advice or not? What's your opinion?

Kites seems very practical and well grounded. He challenges conventional wisdom and really tests assumptions, often finding a flaw. And he has done this with Pfau's work resulting is some pretty good joint papers.

Pfau is kind of academic with what seems to be a strong pro-annuity bias. His assumptions in creating what-if scenarios to model often result in annuities looking quite good. But when you look at the conditions/assumptions you sometimes scratch your head - overly conservative or harsh.

I see Kitces as a great resource and study his papers carefully if it's a topic of interest. Pfau's I take with a large grain of salt.

 

[AtlasShrugged]

Kites seems very practical and well grounded. He challenges conventional wisdom and really tests assumptions, often finding a flaw. And he has done this with Pfau's work resulting is some pretty good joint papers.

Pfau is kind of academic with what seems to be a strong pro-annuity bias. His assumptions in creating what-if scenarios to model often result in annuities looking quite good. But when you look at the conditions/assumptions you sometimes scratch your head - overly conservative or harsh.

I see Kitces as a great resource and study his papers carefully if it's a topic of interest. Pfau's I take with a large grain of salt.

Audrey,

There have been some good responses so far. Yours is my favorite. This is what I was looking for. I will do a deeper dive on Kitces. Thanks.

 

[donheff]

I read them both and enjoy their articles. Over all I think they have made me a little more cautious than I was before I started reading them.

 

[Options]

I read and respect both. Although I don't always agree with them, I would say that both influence my thinking on financing retirement.

+1
I would say the same of Dirk Cotton.