AllianceBernstein Webcast Series

For decades, clients have been told to diversify, stay invested and let compounding work—but today’s markets are shaped by new forces, from shifting inflation and rates to the critical impact of sequence of returns. The Build a Better Path series explores how advisors can adapt their approach—and help clients better understand the risks that shape real-world outcomes. Select sessions offer CE Credits.

July 29, 2026 | 1:00pm ET | 1 CE Credit

Build a Better Path Part Two: 3-D Investing

The critical role of the path of returns in portfolio design:

In part one, we zoomed across a half century of financial markets chapters to highlight one of investors’ biggest challenges: defending long-horizon portfolios from sequence-of-returns risk.

In this continuation of AB’s Disruptors Series, Build a Better Path, we shift from diagnosis to application by digging into practical, actionable approaches to incorporate sequence-of-returns into portfolio design. Specifically, we will:

Explore examples of “better betas” across capital markets assets, with an emphasis on their drivers, persistence and portfolio impact
Discuss the outsized impact of alpha, whether investment or non-investment driven, on the probability of plan success, including key sources
On the topic of non-investment alpha, investors generally think in terms of post-tax spending levels. We’ll illustrate how tax rates can have a dramatic impact on probability of plan success and why these matters
Retirement plan success simulations forecast thousands of possible outcomes across decades to derive expected success rates. We’ll take this a step further by showing how manipulating key drivers within those future forecasts can provide insights into portfolio construction today

Speakers

Rick Brink, CFA

Chief Market Strategist

AllianceBernstein

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Please register me for the following events:

Build a Better Path Part Two: 3-D Investing
(July 29, 2026 | 1:00pm ET)

*I am a financial professional. I understand that this event is for financial professionals only, and I may be contacted by the sponsor.

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July 29, 2026 • 1:00pm ET

Accepted for 1 CFP / IWI / CFA CE Credit

Build a Better Path Part Two: 3-D Investing

The critical role of the path of returns in portfolio design: In part one, we zoomed across a half century of financial markets chapters to highlight one of investors’ biggest challenges: defending long-horizon portfolios from sequence-of-returns risk.

Now On Demand

Accepted for 1 CFP / IWI / CFA CE Credit

When “Stay the Course” Isn’t Enough: Helping Clients Understand the Path Ahead

The Challenge of Delivering Advice in Uncertain Capital Markets: The capital-markets landscape is brimming with questions, and external and geopolitical shocks are emerging more often. This poses a stiff challenge for advisors: guiding portfolios to support increasingly dynamic retirement plans. The stakes are high. With longer lives, finish lines are distant and there are no restarts. Emotion adds complexity: advisors must help clients overcome short-term impulses that may lead them off track.

Now On Demand

Accepted for 1 CFP / IWI / CFA CE Credit

Build a Better Path Part One: What’s Past Is Prologue

Lessons from capital-markets history hold critical insights for portfolio design today. In the first installment of the Build a Better Path series, we adjust our lens. Instead of zooming into a specific topic, we’ll zoom out, assessing the big picture of investing today. Market dynamics have been shifting—and not for the better—amid structural headwinds, years of sequential inflation/affordability shocks, and recurring geopolitical flare-ups. The challenge for investors? Designing portfolios to deliver return paths that make the most of what markets have to offer.