While many of us aim to be financially independent, retire early, and live off our investments (using some version of the 4 percent rule) as soon as we can, we are also painfully aware that retiring at the peak of the financial markets right before a downturn or crisis can leave our financials in tatters. This is what Sequence of Returns Risk, or Sequence Risk, does to retirement investment portfolios. And with the COVID-19 pandemic causing havoc in the financial markets this year in 2020, how do we even hope to be retiring and surviving in a pandemic?

But never fear! While our early posts looked at how and why the 4 percent rule did not work in both Singapore and the US all the time, our research also indicates that a high dividend investment approach using blue chips does have the potential to help a retiree tide over a crisis, such as the 2008 Global