Xmas Cheer: The Debt Is Not Our Biggest Problem
Why do so many pundits and politicians, including the future director of the Office of Management and Budget, beat the debt drum so loudly and so often? It’s one...
Policy Forecast: Gloom with a Chance of Doom
At the Employee Benefit Research Institute's policy forum in D.C. last week, retirement policy experts were not cheerful about the coming inauguration, and some feared that retirement security will...
Calculating After-Tax Social Security Benefits
A handy crib sheet recently published by Vanguard shows the formulae for calculating the portion of an individual's or couple's Social Security benefits that will be subject to ordinary...
Voya: From Orange to Origami
Almost four years after its IPO, Voya (formerly ING-US) has rebranded, retooled itself as a fixed indexed annuity shop and launched an ad campaign featuring origami rodents that talk....
What To Tell Nervous (Older) Clients Now
During market turmoil, the messages from “retirement income” advisors to their clients should be substantially different in their content from the messages that investment advisors typically send to their...
At DCIIA Forum, Familiar Faces and Fresh Ideas
Does automatic enrollment lead to higher consumer debt? Should employers stop sponsoring retirement plans? These are other ideas were floated at the Defined Contribution Institutional Investors Association Academic Forum...
Which Annuity Is Better? This New Tool Tells You
Cannex, the Toronto-based annuity product data, just announced a new tool, based on research by annuity guru Moshe Milvesky, that enables advisors to do side-by-side comparisons of annuity contracts....
Anecdotal Evidence: Trump and the DOL Rule
'Would the financial services industry want to return to square one after spending millions of dollars to reconfigure their compliance systems and products' for the DOL conflict of interest...
Trump and the Trajectory of Interest Rates
'There could be pressure for rates to go higher as investors digest the deficit spending pushed by Mr. Trump,' said Andrew McCormick, head of T. Rowe Price’s U.S. taxable...
The View from the (DOL) Trenches
'“Many of the broker-dealers are still searching for a light switch in a dark room,” said James Lumberg of Envestnet, who, with Jeff Schwantz of Morningstar and Arjun Saxena...
Anecdotal Evidence: How to Charm a Client
When dealing with your HNW clients and prospects, success depends less on performance or fees than on solving clients’ problems and simplifying their complex lives.
A Word to the Wise Advisor
At the Money Management Institute Fall Solutions conference in Boston this week, one of the presentations focused on the right and wrong words to use when explaining the impact...
Anecdotal Evidence: Football and Financial Ads
Watching football games lets me see TV ads for financial services companies. Last weekend, I saw funny ads from E*Trade and GEICO, and a serious ad from Northwestern Mutua....
The Annuity That Pays for Itself
The deferred income annuity, aka longevity insurance, is favored by academics and is mandatory in Germany and Singapore. Here's a compelling new way to explain its value to clients,...
Retiring (Temporarily) to Paradise
An old friend who retired early to a hacienda by the sea in Nicaragua sent me an e-mail recently, responding to my question about his life there. His answer...
