An often seen cliché is that of what we'll refer to as "age-based" risk tolerance. It is conventional wisdom that a younger investor has a long-term time horizon in terms of the need for investments and can take more risk. Following this logic, an older individual has a short investment horizon, especially once that individual is retired, and would have low risk tolerance. While this may be true in general, there are certainly a number of other considerations that come into play.
First, we need to consider investment. When will funds be needed? If the time horizon is relatively short, risk tolerance should shift to be more conservative. For long-term investments, there is room for more aggressive investing.
Be careful, however, about blindly following conventional wisdom. For example, don't think that just because you are 65 that you must shift everything to conservative investments, such as certificates of deposit or Treasury bills. While this may be appropriate for some, it may not be appropriate for all - such as for an individual who has enough to retire and live off of the interest of his or her investments without touching the principal. With today's growing life expectancies and advancing medical science, the 65-year-old investor may still have a 20-year (or more) time horizon.
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