New Delhi, Oct. 18 -- Building a corpus for financial independence and early retirement (FIRE) requires a different investment strategy from saving for short-term financial goals. While investors need sufficient equity exposure to grow their wealth over the long term, they must also ensure that their money can support regular expenses once they stop working. The challenge is to build a corpus that can sustain decades of withdrawals without making retirement income overly dependent on short-term market movements.

Jasmeet Singh, executive director at Anand Rathi Wealth, says asset allocation should depend on the time remaining until financial independence rather than age alone. The strategy should also change once investors move from accum...