When contemplating an investment, few questions are as important as “What is your time horizon?” The answer can help you decide what type of investment vehicle you should consider, which investments to avoid, and how long to hold your investment before selling.

It is important to note that the passage of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act in December 2019 changes some of the familiar rules of retirement. For example, prior to the passage of the act, the age for taking required minimum distributions (RMDs) from a retirement account was 70½, and now that age is 72.

In addition, if you are still working, you can continue to contribute to your traditional IRA account, past the former cut-off age of 70½, similar to the rules for 401k and Roth accounts.

Risk and Time

Investors often put their money into an aggressive investment vehicle, such as growth stocks—and then keep it there indefinitely. Not a smart move. While such an investment may be a good choice when purchased, it can become less and less appropriate as time passes. This scenario often happens when saving for retirement, or for a child’s college expenses—any long-term investment plan.

In one common example, investors partake in their company’s employee stock ownership plans. Over the course of several decades, biweekly payroll deductions and employer matching contributions help the employee build up a substantial number of shares in the company.

As the employee’s retirement date approaches, though, the stock market crashes, devastating the value of the employee’s portfolio and forcing them to continue working. A similar result is often seen when an employee puts 100% of their savings into equity mutual funds. For years, a bull market reigns, and the balance grows. Then, just as the employee starts planning to retire, a decline in the stock market wipes out a substantial portion of the employee’s nest egg.

These scenarios play out frequently. In response, the financial services industry has created investment products to help investors match their portfolio holdings to an appropriate timeline. This approach helps investors avoid the negative outcomes associated with inappropriate asset allocation. Of course, with any of these investments, one must pay attention to associated fees and costs.

Evaluating Time Horizons

There are no hard-and-fast rules, but some generally agreed-upon guidelines will help you decide which investments are appropriate for various timelines.

To create a portfolio based on time, you must realize that volatility is a bigger risk short term than long term. If you have 30 years to reach a goal, such as retirement, a market move that causes the value of your investments to plunge is not as big a danger, given that you have decades to recover. Experiencing the same volatility a year before you retire, though, can seriously derail your plans.

Accordingly, placing parameters around the time frame of your investments is a valuable exercise.

• Short Term. As a general rule, short-term goals are those less than five years in the future. With a short-term horizon, if a drop in the market occurs, the date on which the money will be needed will be too close for the portfolio to have enough time to recover from the market drop. To reduce the risk of loss, holding funds in cash or cash-like vehicles is likely the most appropriate strategy. Money market funds and short-term certificates of deposit are popular conservative investments, as are savings accounts.
• Intermediate Term. Intermediate-term goals are those five to 10 years in the future. At this range, some exposure to stocks and bonds will help grow the initial investment’s value, and the amount of time until the money must be spent is far enough in the future to permit a degree of volatility. Balanced mutual funds, which include a mix of stocks and bonds, are popular investments for intermediate-term goals.
• Long-Term. Long-term goals are those more than 10 years in the future. More conservative investors may cite 15 years as the time horizon for long-term goals. Over long-term time periods, stocks offer greater potential rewards. While they also entail greater risk, there is time available to recover from a loss.

Investment Choices

To help investors avoid the negative consequences associated with bad timing, the financial services industry has created a variety of investments:

• Target-Date Funds are mutual funds that automatically reset the mix of assets (stocks, bonds, cash) in their portfolios according to a selected time frame. They are frequently used as retirement savings vehicles, with the mix of investments becoming more conservative as the investor’s retirement date approaches. For example, a target-date fund designed to fund an investor’s retirement 30 years from today might have a mix of investments weighted heavily toward stocks, with a moderate amount of bonds and little cash. Thirty years later, the mix might be the exact opposite, with cash making up the largest percentage of the portfolio, followed by a moderate amount of bonds and few stocks.
• College Savings Plans and qualified tuition plans, also known as 529 plans, help investors cover the cost of primary and secondary schools, university and college, vocational school, or even an apprenticeship education, which was added under the passage of the SECURE Act. In addition, the act now allows 529 plan funds to cover up to $10,000 in student loans. 
  Named after Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code, these tax-advantaged programs help investors pay the costs of tuition, room and board, books and other education-associated costs. One method is a college savings plan that permits investors to set aside a specific amount of money that is generally invested in a pre-approved list of mutual funds. Many of these funds are age-based funds, which operate in a similar manner to target-date funds. As the child ages and the date on which tuition must be paid approaches, the asset allocation becomes more conservative. Since the value of the investment portfolio changes with fluctuations of the financial markets, automatic adjustments to the portfolio move money to more conservative investments to reduce the risk that a stock market crash will wipe out the savings just before tuition comes due. The challenge here is that underlying investment growth may not be enough to cover the full tuition cost.
• Mutual Funds are a convenient way to diversify. Choosing investments that automatically shift assets to cash or income-oriented instruments isn’t the only option for investors seeking to use time horizons. Investing in mutual funds and then moving the money to less-aggressive funds as time passes is another option. They offer professional investment management, including security selection, and a large variety of choices, making it easy to get a mix of many securities. So-called “balanced” funds even offer a balance between stocks and bonds in a single fund. 
• Stocks and Bonds can be used to build and manage your own portfolio, if you have the time, skill, and interest. As time passes, you can adjust your asset allocation in favor of less-aggressive investments.

The Bottom Line

Time horizon investing is all about planning. You need to think about your goals. Once you have done that, investment selection is based on the amount of time you have until the goal must be funded. As the funding date approaches, assets are shifted to more conservative investments to reduce the risk of market-related losses derailing your strategy. However, associated fees need to be considered when choosing the mix of investments.