A Liquidity Option for DIAs?
The desirability and feasibility of allowing owners of deferred income annuities to convert income streams to lump sums was discussed at the American Law Institute's Continuing Legal Education Conference...
A Guide that Perplexes
“An annuity is a contract with an insurance company.” Sadly, many texts about annuities begin this way. You might as well describe marriage to teenagers as “a legal contract...
Stocks poised to keep rising in 2014: Fidelity
With foreign sales producing about 40% of the revenues of large U.S. manufacturing companies, Fidelity said, rapid economic growth in emerging markets and economic stability in China and Europe...
Allocations to TDFs continue to climb: EBRI and ICI
Nearly 54% of the account balances of recently hired participants in their 20s was invested in balanced funds, including TDFs, compared with about 7% in 1998, according to a...
Nobelist Sharpe makes retirement income planning software available
The free software will gradually become available through Bill Sharpe's blog, Retirementincomescenarios, and through the website, scratch.mit.edu.
Inflation-Proof Retirement Income
American College professor Wade Pfau shows how to build a ladder of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities for retirement income. At current prices, a 30-year ladder that would generate $50,000 a...
Seven Wishes for the Year Ahead
What will happen in the retirement industry in 2014? Beats me. I can only share a few of the things I hope might happen.
Comment: Goodbye, Mature Market Institute
Last spring, MetLife pulled the plug on its popular, respected thought-leadership unit after a 15-year run. Did the decision signify a loss of faith in the Boomer retirement opportunity?
A Crash in Late 2014?
"We can guess at a market peak sometime between Sept. 2014 and June 2015, at a level much higher than the current one. We can, however, be pretty sure...
IRI publishes a look back at 2013 and look forward to 2014
In a linguistic gesture that may dismay some fund companies, the report refers to “volatility funds" when describing managed-volatility funds.
Fitch sees stability for life insurers in 2014
Overall, Fitch’s near-term outlook for the life insurance industry was “stable,” assuming no major interest rate spikes, no international crises and a continuation of the weak recovery, modest GDP...
W&S FGD introduces managed-risk investment strategy to GLWB rider
By using the managed-volatility funds, VA contract owners can get a lifetime withdrawal benefit rider without having to put at least 30% of their assets in fixed income investments.
Time, money, age and advice: They’re all connected
At any given life stage, a new research paper says, people tend to manage their investments in one of three ways: by doing nothing (“inertia”), by doing it themselves...
Czechmate: New government will end auto-enrolled DC plan
The Czech experiment with a voluntary, auto-enrolled national defined contribution plan (a "second pillar" plan to supplement the primary pay-as-you-go plan) will end. Balances will be rolled into the...
RetiremEntrepreneur: Robert Klein
West Coast CFP, CPA and RICP Robert Klein has jumped on the retirement bandwagon, recasting his business as the Retirement Income Center, becoming a MarketWatch RetireMentor and putting fixed...
What Fools These Mortals Be
E*Trade, TD Ameritrade and Merrill Edge all dangle a $600 signing bonus to people who open new brokerage accounts with cash--lots and lots of cash, it turns out.
Is There a Retirement Crisis or Not?
Two recent reports from different organizations paint very different portraits of retirement readiness in the U.S.
Everybody wants to be a wealth manager
"Advisers are more likely to set an asset minimum (43%) than to have a definition of their ideal client," according to results of a survey by the Financial Planning...
Great-West Financial launches low-cost VA with income rider
The contract has two sleeves, one for investment and the other for income. Only money designated for the income sleeve is subject to the lifetime income benefit rider, a...
So far, fee disclosure hasn’t moved the fee-awareness dial
Fee disclosure regulations that were established in 2012 brought greater transparency to the retirement industry. But LIMRA finds they’ve had little effect.
