Optimistic investors tend to be more
active retirement planners than pessimists, according to data released
by Fidelity Investments today.
Out of the 1,000 husbands and
wives who participated in Fidelity’s survey, 89% of couples had one
partner who tended to be more optimistic than the other and was more
involved in making decisions about retirement.
More than 80% of optimists said they expected a comfortable lifestyle in retirement, while just 61% of pessimists agreed.
When
the recession hit, 22% of pessimists said, they panicked and wanted to
flee the market, compared with just 11% of optimists. Meanwhile, 77% of
optimists — but only 57% of pessimists — wanted to stay the course.
Although 27% of optimists have completed a detailed income plan to
lay out their retirement finances, just 15% of pessimists have done so.
A quarter of pessimists — more than double the number of
optimists — aim to preserve their money and tend to accept
considerably lower returns. And 45% of pessimists, compared with 33% of
optimists, said they were worried about risks to their retirement
funds, like the possibility of Social Security being reduced.