San Diego-based investment advisory firm Dunham & Associates has developed a new retirement investment framework aimed at solving what it calls ‘sequence risk,’ a threat to retirement financial planning that could leave retirees without sufficient funds later in life.
The firm, founded by Jeffrey Dunham in 1985, added $1.85 billion in total assets in the past year through organic growth alone. It now manages approximately $8.4 billion in total client assets across all 50 states, with roughly 100 employees in 14 states, the San Diego Business Journal reported.
The ‘retirement real return rule’ was developed by Salvatore M. Capizzi, executive vice president of Dunham & Associates. The framework addresses the problem of high inflation in early retirement years, which erodes purchasing power and forces retirees to make larger withdrawals, leaving less capital to grow even when inflation moderates.
‘Sustainable retirement planning is less about hitting any specific nominal return and more about maintaining a real return spread of roughly 4 to 5 percentage points above inflation across the full retirement horizon,’ Capizzi explained in a Dunham report.
Retirement portfolios need to earn a 6% net return at the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target to provide long-term sustainability and potentially fund up to 40 years of withdrawals, according to the firm’s research.
Dunham’s growth recently earned the firm three finalist honors at the 2026 InvestmentNews Excellence Awards: Asset Manager of the Year, Compliance Team of the Year, and Wholesaler of the Year.
The firm uses a disciplined, algorithm-driven investment approach that Dunham describes as ‘buy when others are fearful, sell when others are greedy.’ This philosophy proved lucrative during recent market volatility. When stocks dropped after President Trump announced tariffs in early 2025, Dunham loaded up on equities. When the market recovered, he sold aggressively.
‘We can’t invest emotionally; we have to invest mathematically. It’s disciplined,’ Dunham said.
Dunham also expanded into trust services in 1999, opening offices in Nevada and Wyoming to help clients from high-tax states reduce their state income tax burden. ‘In Nevada, a trust can go on for 365 years, and in Wyoming it may go on for a thousand,’ Dunham noted.
