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Ten to 15 work years is the remaining runway for many Americans aged 50 to 55, a window long enough to extend 401(k) and IRA growth investing but short enough that a poorly timed market crash carries consequences that younger investors do not face.
The memory of the dotcom bubble sits at the center of how this cohort evaluates risk, and for Gen X investors closing in on retirement, that memory is not a remote data point.
A cohort shaped by one crash Gen X investors now in the 50-to-55 bracket were active in markets during the dotcom era.
That crash produced a lesson that does not age out: markets can fall hard, recoveries take time, and time is what this cohort has less of each year. The bubble's relevance to today's portfolio decisions is not nostalgia.
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