La stratégie de désinvestissement graduel des marchés financiers sécurise-t-elle réellement l’épargne ?

This paper evaluates the empirical validity of gradual selling mechanism of risky assets. We compare this strategy with another one whose share invested in risky assets remains constant during the life of the investment by using financial data from 5 countries and for horizons ranging from 5 to 30 years. We use various risk measures including the standard deviation of the final cumulative return, its degree of dissymmetry, the probability of loss and the risk premium claimed by an investor to switch from one strategy to another. Compared to usual recommendations of financial advisors, the results do not show tangible benefits from the gradual disinvestment strategy in terms of risk reduction. When savings is progressively accumulated, the policy of gradual disinvestment is however slightly better than a constant share of risky assets.