October Retirement Portfolio Resilience Assessment

Markets stable. The price of risk has fallen.

Retirement investing presents a different portfolio construction challenge from wealth accumulation. While investors continue contributing capital during the accumulation phase, retirees must continue drawing income regardless of market conditions. As a result, major market declines can have a disproportionately greater impact on long-term retirement outcomes through sequencing risk, making retirement portfolio construction a distinct discipline.

Retirement Portfolio Resilience is the discipline of helping investors remain financially and emotionally invested throughout their retirement journey, regardless of the path markets take. It complements Retirement Income by focusing on reducing dependence on favourable market conditions, thereby supporting more resilient long-term retirement outcomes.

Prudent retirement stewardship therefore extends beyond selecting individual investments. It involves ensuring that a retirement portfolio addresses the four complementary functions of retirement portfolio construction:

☐ Growth – supporting long-term capital growth and purchasing power throughout retirement.

☐ Defensive – providing capital stability, liquidity and cash reserves to help manage market uncertainty.

☐ Retirement Income – generating sustainable income throughout retirement.

☑ Retirement Portfolio Resilience – addressing sequencing risk and behavioural survivability so investors can remain financially and emotionally invested throughout their retirement journey.

Each month, the Retirement Portfolio Resilience Assessment examines the current investment environment through the Retirement Portfolio Resilience framework. Rather than attempting to predict markets, it interprets observable evidence that may assist investors, advisers and other stewards of retirement capital in making more resilient long-term portfolio construction decisions.

To continue the Retirement Portfolio Resilience conversation, visit the Gyrostat Knowledge Centre for the Retirement Portfolio Resilience Framework, adviser resources and ongoing research https://www.gyrostat.com.au/knowledge-centre/

Major market declines are not exceptional events

One of the enduring challenges of retirement investing is that major market declines are not exceptional events—they are a normal feature of long-term investment markets. Over the past ninety years, equity markets have experienced numerous declines exceeding 20%, often requiring many years to recover to previous highs. While every market cycle is different, the historical record demonstrates that significant market falls occur with sufficient regularity that prudent retirement portfolio construction should assume they will occur again rather than regard them as rare events.

For investors accumulating wealth, regular contributions may help offset the impact of market declines over time. Retirement presents a different mathematical challenge. Withdrawals continue regardless of market conditions, meaning the timing of investment returns can materially influence long-term retirement outcomes. Sequencing risk is therefore an enduring characteristic of retirement investing rather than a temporary market concern.

Importantly, the relatively rapid recoveries following the last three major market declines have been historically favourable for investors. While future market behaviour cannot be known, prudent stewards of retirement capital should be cautious about assuming similarly rapid recoveries will always occur. Instead, periods where market conditions allow retirement portfolio resilience to be strengthened at a relatively modest cost may represent valuable opportunities to prepare portfolios before the next major market decline rather than after it.

Pricing Retirement Portfolio Resilience

Rather than attempting to predict the timing of the next major market decline, a Retirement Portfolio Resilience approach asks different questions:

This Month's Assessment Question

What are the consequences for a retirement portfolio if markets do not behave as expected — and how much resilience has been deliberately built into its construction?

One advantage of viewing markets through the lens of Retirement Portfolio Resilience is that it changes the question investors ask.

Rather than attempting to predict whether markets will rise or fall or when the next major decline might occur, Retirement Portfolio Resilience focuses on observable market conditions and what those conditions may mean for portfolio construction.

This month's assessment presents an interesting change in conditions.

Australian equity markets have remained broadly stable, while the quoted cost of downside protection has fallen.

At 9 October 2026, the ASX 200 was approximately 8,700, compared with approximately 8,708 at the time of our September assessment — effectively unchanged.

Over the same period, the quoted cost of establishing downside protection to March 2027 has fallen substantially.

For example, in September, protecting a $1 million portfolio until 18 March 2027 with a 10% hard floor cost approximately 1.47% of the portfolio ($14,700). In the October assessment, comparable protection costs approximately 0.90% ($9,000) — a reduction of approximately 39%.

Similarly, the quoted cost of a 7.5% hard floor has declined from approximately 1.82% to 1.20%.

The comparison reflects both changing option prices and the reduction in time remaining to expiry, from approximately 188 days in September to 160 days in October. It should not be interpreted as a pure measure of changing market volatility.

The observation is therefore straightforward:

Markets have been stable. The cost of protection has fallen.

Importantly, this does not tell us what markets will do next. Markets may rise, decline further, or move sideways. The purpose of the Retirement Portfolio Resilience Assessment is not to make that prediction.

Instead, the change in conditions since September illustrates an important principle of retirement portfolio construction:

The consequences of an adverse market path remain, even as the market price of establishing protection changes.

Retirement Portfolio Resilience is not dependent on predicting market direction or purchasing any particular form of protection. It is a portfolio-construction discipline that can be implemented through different investment instruments and risk-management approaches as market conditions change.

For retirees, this distinction matters. Sequencing risk does not begin when markets fall, nor does it disappear when markets rise. Retirement portfolios must continue supporting withdrawals across the range of market conditions that may occur throughout a retirement measured in decades.

Behavioural discipline is important, but investors cannot simply behave their way out of a portfolio structure that is not designed for the market path it encounters. Resilience must therefore be considered as a portfolio-construction decision before adverse conditions test both the portfolio and the investor.

The stewardship question is therefore not:

“Do we expect markets to fall?”

It is:

“Is the retirement portfolio structured to remain resilient across the range of market conditions that may occur?”

For this reason, we continue to publish our monthly “Do It Yourself” protection pricing table. The purpose of the table is not to provide a market forecast. It allows investors, advisers and other stewards of retirement capital to observe how the market's pricing of downside risk changes through time.

The table below shows this month's illustrative protection pricing as of 9 October 2026.

Source: Gyrostat analysis of ASX 200 option pricing

What the October Pricing Tells Us

The October pricing provides a useful practical illustration of why the price of risk matters.

The ASX 200 has remained broadly stable since the September assessment, at approximately 8,700. Over the same period, the quoted cost of establishing downside protection to March 2027 has fallen substantially.

The cost of a 10% hard floor has declined from approximately 1.47% to 0.90% of a $1 million portfolio, while the cost of a 7.5% hard floor has declined from approximately 1.82% to 1.20%.

These comparisons use the same March 2027 expiry, although the remaining protection period has shortened from approximately 188 to 160 days. The reduction therefore reflects both changes in option pricing and the passage of time.

This does not mean protection should automatically be purchased whenever its price rises or falls. No single indicator should determine a portfolio construction decision.

Rather, the pricing provides observable evidence about the changing market conditions under which downside risk can be managed.

That distinction is important. The consequences of an adverse market path do not disappear simply because markets are stable or protection becomes less expensive.

Retirement Portfolio Resilience is not dependent on predicting market direction or purchasing a particular form of protection. It is a deliberate portfolio-construction discipline, supported by ongoing risk pricing and the flexibility to adapt investment structures as conditions change.

This is one of the enduring disciplines of Retirement Portfolio Resilience:

Design resilience before adverse conditions make its value obvious.

Assessing Retirement Portfolio Resilience

If Retirement Portfolio Resilience is considered alongside Growth, Defensive and Retirement Income as a complementary retirement portfolio function, a practical question follows:

How much Retirement Portfolio Resilience does the portfolio contain, and what difference might it make during a significant market decline?

A practical way of assessing this function is through an RPR Unit.

One RPR Unit represents a 5% allocation of the total retirement portfolio to Retirement Portfolio Resilience.

Historical analysis provides one objective way of assessing its potential portfolio impact. Across four periods since 2022 in which Australian equities declined by at least 7%, an illustrative portfolio containing one RPR Unit using Gyrostat Class A historically reduced the loss attributable to the Australian-equity sleeve by approximately 36% on average. Using Class B, the historical average was approximately 39%. 

Historical illustration. One RPR Unit represents 5% of the total portfolio. The illustration assumes a 20% Australian-equity allocation, comprising 75% Australian equities and 25% Gyrostat within that sleeve. Mitigation refers to the reduction in the loss attributable to the Australian-equity sleeve. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

The purpose of this evidence is not to suggest that future market declines will produce the same result. It provides an objective way of considering whether Retirement Portfolio Resilience is performing a distinct function within the broader retirement portfolio.

This is why Retirement Portfolio Resilience is different from simply holding defensive assets. Its purpose is to alter the portfolio's experience of an adverse market path while retaining participation in growth assets.

Gyrostat seeks to provide this function through equity participation combined with embedded downside protection, disciplined capital allocation and ongoing portfolio governance.

Stewardship in practice

Retirement Portfolio Resilience does not seek to predict whether markets will rise or fall or when the next major decline will occur. Its purpose is to help investors and advisers assess whether retirement portfolios are appropriately structured for a wide range of future market conditions.

The movement from September to October provides a useful practical example. Australian equity markets have remained broadly stable, while the quoted cost of downside protection to March 2027 has fallen substantially.

The consequences of an adverse market path remain unchanged, reinforcing the importance of deliberately incorporating resilience into retirement portfolio construction rather than relying on favourable market conditions.

Has the retirement portfolio deliberately addressed Growth, Defensive, Retirement Income and Retirement Portfolio Resilience before adverse market conditions make the value of each function obvious?

How resilience is implemented will depend on the objectives and structure of the portfolio. The broader stewardship principle, however, is enduring.

Resilience is most valuable when it is already in place before it is required.

The Retirement Portfolio Resilience Assessment will continue each month to observe how the market prices risk and to consider what those conditions may mean for prudent retirement portfolio construction.

Gyrostat Capital Management prepared this document and it is intended only for Australian residents who are wholesale clients (as defined in the Corporations Act 2001). To the extent any part may be perceived as financial product advice, it is general advice only and has been prepared without taking into account of the reader’s investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Anyone reading this report must obtain and rely upon their own independent advice and inquiries. Investors should consider the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) relevant to the Fund before making any decision to acquire, continue to hold or dispose of units in the Fund. You should also consult a licensed financial adviser before making an investment decision in relation to the Fund. One Managed Investment Funds Limited ACN 117 400 987 AFSL 297042, is the responsible entity of the Fund but did not prepare the information contained in this document. While OMIFL has no reason to believe that the information is inaccurate, the truth or accuracy of the information in this document cannot be warranted or guaranteed.