Many people may get retrench & jobless before 50, & majority would have significant pay cut thereafter, so working until 65 & with upward pay path is a myth?
No. The available data suggest what I've described is the
typical pattern. I didn't say it was universal, and (moreover) saving and prudently investing monthly does not require an upward pay path through an entire working career (an assertion I did not make). That'd be nice, of course, but it's not required.
I have 90% invested in stocks, have profits over past years but the sharp drop is quickly eroding all profits, thinking of bailing out to preserve capital, should I?
Based on Friday's closing price and the previous intraday peak, the U.S. S&P 500 stock index has dropped about 13% recently. If you're going to
sell stocks every time
after a 13% (or more) drop, then I'm highly confident your decades of investing ahead (I assume) will not end well.
Will stock index drop another 20% in next few months?
It could! Or anything else could happen, consistent with a likely long-term appreciation trajectory.
This will turn my whole portfolio into loses! >10 years of profits all go into drain!
First of all, how do you figure that? Have you been buying monthly for >10 years (>120 months)? Second, what have you been buying? Third, "So what?" Are you planning to retire next week...with 90% of your portfolio in stocks?
By the way, you know what else declined in value this past week? Your house. True, there's no instantaneous price quotation on your house, but these same factors that took some value off stocks affect real estate, too. Are you going to sell your house on Monday?
Also considering job uncertainty, recession comes & may become jobless.
Yes, but that's
always a risk, and it's always a greater risk if there's a recession. All of that is always known. That's why you maintain at least a 6 month (I prefer longer) emergency reserve fund.
I'll editorialize here that the risk varies considerably depending on your immigration status in Singapore. Foreigners run the greatest risk, other things being equal, since employers are highly motivated to release their foreign workers first if they have to cut back on headcount. But hopefully foreign employees already know that.
