Variable annuity client behavior revealed in Ruark survey
'On a nominal basis 81% of GLWB exposure is in-the-money, whereas on an actuarial basis only 11% is in-the-money,' writes Ruark CEO Timothy Paris. (It's complicated.)
Research
Auto-enrollees don’t ‘borrow to save,’ researchers say
In a departure from their preliminary findings of three years ago, economists found that middle-income government workers didn't increase their debt levels after being auto-enrolled in the Thrift Savings...
Do Fiduciary Rules Work, or Do They Backfire?
'We found that broker-dealer representatives in states with common law fiduciary duties sold cheaper and better products and sell fewer variable annuities overall,' said Manisha Padi, one of the...
It’s No Joke: The Fed’s Comic Book is Wrong
The educational comic book from the New York Fed means well but perpetuates the myth that money was created in the private sector to facilitate barter and enabled commerce...
Top earners in US own mid-sized businesses
Among the top 0.1% Americans in terms of income, business owners are well-represented. They frequently own small or mid-sized companies such as auto dealerships, beverage distributors, or large law...
Wages are rising, but so is productivity
'Consumer debt in relation to income remains low. Interest rates remain low and the Fed has now ceased its series of rate hikes. We anticipate GDP growth of 2.7%...
The Reason for SPIAs, from Pfau and Finke
In a new whitepaper sponsored by Principal Financial Group, the two retirement experts from The American College use hypothetical cases to show the advantages of using deferred and immediate...
New Research on 401K Plans, from Top Researchers
Boston College, DCIIA and Morningstar provide new research on Britain's 'NEST' experience with auto-enrollment, custom TDFs and why replacing bad 401k investment options is a good idea.
The Case for Collaboration among State-Sponsored Savings Plans
The authors of this article, Angela M. Antonelli, director of the Georgetown University Center for Retirement Initiatives (pictured), J. Mark Iwry, a Brookings Institution fellow, and David C. John,...
TrimTabs foresees no US slowdown
The research firm said in a release this week that its Macroeconomic Index is near a record high.
Help AM Best Create Metrics for ‘Innovation’
AM Best’s evaluation of a company’s innovation level will be based on two elements: innovation inputs (the components of a company’s innovation process), and innovation outputs (the impact of...
Side-by-Side Comparison: A VA Minimum Accumulation Benefit Rider vs. an Index Annuity
Which of these two types of annuity contracts was able to offer the best principal protection and upside potential over a 10-year period? CANNEX tested them over 10,000 randomly...
Trade Tantrum
'Thus, the rather impressive widening of the trade gap last year subtracted a mere 0.2% from GDP growth. It is hard to conclude that the wider trade gap had...
Risky Retirement Business
'The returns on external sovereign bonds (largely bonds issued by emerging market countries and now-advanced economies) have been sufficiently high to compensate investors for risk,' write these co-researchers. (Pictured:...
Retail investors reach for income when interest rates fall
A one percentage point drop in the federal funds rate is associated, over the following three years, with a five percent increase in the inflows to stock mutual funds...
Surrender rates on some FIAs tick higher
While interest rate hikes tend to drive surrenders from fixed indexed annuity contracts, surrenders decline when a contract's lifetime income benefits are 'in the money,' studies by Ruark Consulting...
Why People Should Work Longer, but Don’t
New research from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College and the National Bureau of Economic Research looks at the economic and situational factors that affect individual decisions...
A Genuine ‘Value Fund’ Is Hard to Find
"Even if the fund says ‘value,’ there’s no likelihood that it’s a value fund,” said Martin Lettau of UC-Berkeley, co-author of a study showing that Dimensional's value funds may...
Aging boomers drive flows into fixed income
Advisors are focused on downside risk protection and they commonly use taxable fixed income (83%) and municipal fixed income (74%) to achieve the objective for clients, said Cerulli Associates.
Notable Retirement Research of 2018
Our selection of ten outstanding retirement-related research papers from 2018 starts off with a summary of Joe Tomlinson's proposal for three new annuity products that have never been issued...
