I have a draft article with some interesting analysis showing the probabilities of running out of funds across numerous drawdown scenarios…click Reducing the Risks of Portfolio Failure in Retirement – Oct 2010.
If we’re forecasting growth returns to be around 10% then even with a conservative expectation of the volatility of annual returns and the chances of starting retirement off with some ordinary returns it looks like a 4% initial drawdown linked to inflation (~3%) is probably safest…please have a read and let me know what you think.