[Rain Man]

Here's a big picture question for people. For the sake of discussion, let's assume that the stock market doesn't go to zero this year and I'll still have some money going forward.

I have IRA accounts (tax-deferred) and regular investment accounts (taxed) to fund my retirement. I started the IRA accounts when I was young, and started the investment accounts later, after I had the cash flow to save beyond the IRA limits.

Because I started the IRA accounts at a younger age and tend to be a buy and hold guy, those accounts are much more heavily populated with non-tech stocks. As a general rule, imagine that they're companies like consumer goods and industrials and health care and stuff. They often pay dividends. Think classic Dow and S&P 500 stocks.

On the other hand, my investment accounts are more tech stocks. This is where I have most of my FAANG stocks and software companies and robotics and Tesla and so on. Think NASDAQ stocks. They're less likely to pay dividends and have been growing faster over the past decade.

It's not a clear distinction or a strategy. It's just a pattern because I had more money to spend in my investment accounts as the tech sector was growing.

So my question, then, relates to my optimal retirement cash flow strategy.

My hope is that I won't withdraw money out of my IRAs (other than required minimum distributions) for another 15-20 years. My early retirement will be funded by the investment accounts.

Am I better off....

1. Keeping the investment profiles the way they are now?
2. Shuffling my holdings so that I have the dividend stocks in my investment accounts and the tech stocks in my IRAs?
3. Mixing them up so there's no pattern?

My initial hunch is Approach 2. The dividend stocks are more stable so I'm less likely to need to sell at a low point. The dividends will generate cash so that I have to sell less. And the tech stocks have historically grown faster so they'd be better in the IRAs for another 20 years if that pattern persists. This would require me to take some capital gains taxes as I do the shuffle, though, which is costing me money that would otherwise be growing.

Again, this all assumes that we're not scavenging for post-apocalyptic food scraps as the stock market continues it's 2022 plunge toward zero.

Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe it doesn't matter. But it seems like there's probably an optimal strategy. What say ye, denizens of the football internet?