Fragile Capital: Why the FTSE 100 Proves Passive Investing Fails in Retirement
A brutal stress test of standard withdrawal rules against real UK market crashes and inflation.
TL;DR The market thinks buying and holding broad-market ETFs forever is a risk-free path to a comfortable retirement.
The actual unit economics say if you retired into the FTSE 100 on New Year’s Eve 1999, it took you 15 years just to break even on your capital while your living expenses bled you dry. We give away the conclusion to prove we have the goods: “passive” investing isn’t passive when you are actively withdrawing cash. The math and the structural protection strategies we use are behind the paywall.
