AXA Trumpets a Treasury-Linked VA Rider
AXA Equitable Life (and its trademark gorilla) have bounced back from the financial crisis with a novel variable annuity rider that pegs guaranteed accumulation and withdrawal rates to the...
Can’t Do The Math
You knew it all along, but now there's evidence. Most Americans are financially illiterate. Experts wonder how the millions who don't understand compound interest can possibly fashion successful retirements.
Bridge to Somewhere
"Liability-driven investing for individuals" is how J. Brent Burns, MBA, (left), and Stephen J. Huxley, Ph.D., describe Asset
Dedication, which is the name of their bond-laddering methodology, their book...
Luck of the Draw
In this second installment of our series on retirement risks, we examine sequence-of-returns risk: what it is, what it can cost, and how best to deal with it.
Holiday Cheer
Forget doom-and-gloom. Recent research suggests that the Crash of 2008 will not prevent most Boomers from retiring as planned.
Ally, Ally, InFRE
The International Foundation for Retirement Education, directed by Kevin S. Seibert, CFP, has been certifying retirement advisors since 1997. Now the certifier itself is certified.
Dubya’s Lingering Gift
Tax rates are obviously northbound. So high-bracket folks should convert to Roth IRAs next year, right? Not necessarily, advisors told us.
Estimating Out-of-Pocket Health Care Costs in Retirement
Couples can expect to spend $200,000 or more on premiums, deductibles and co-pays in retirement. This article is the first in a series on retirement risks.
The View from Taroko Gorge
Touring this marble-walled canyon, I could see millions of years into Taiwan's geological past and a few years into its demographic future.
Taiwan Grapples With Retirement Finance
Over lunch in Taipei, economist Jack Wu explained the pension dynamics of an aging society.
Unsolved Mystery
In Matt Greenwald's "mystery shopper" experiment, near-retirement couples met with eight financial advisors to find out if they would recommend income annuities. None did.
In the ‘Green Zone’ with Jim Otar
The Toronto engineer-turned-advisor has self-published an exhaustive new book and launched a refined version of his Retirement Optimizer software.
‘Old People with Attitude and Expectations’
Boomers hope for a long and feisty retirement. But at the Longevity 5 conference in Manhattan last month, experts saw global aging as a threat almost as great as...
A Comic Approach to Participant-Ed
A Dutch pension administrator hopes a mildly racy comic book will help educate its plans' younger bus drivers and railway workers.
RIIA Launches Designation for Retirement Advisors
Francois Gadenne and the Retirement Income Industry Association want to spread the doctrine of "build a floor, then create upside."
Inflation Cushion
PIMCO envisions a trillion-dollar retail and institutional market for its new TIPS-based ‘Real Income’ managed payout funds.
It’s Spee-Ahz, By a Nose!
Gaobo Pang and Mark Warshawsky's study supports a strategy of combining income annuities with mutual funds in retirement.
How Good Is This Ad? You Decide.
This ad drew a wide range of responses. Many reviewers said it “spoke to them.” Some said it left them cold.
A Chat with Jackson’s Clifford Jack
'We talk all the time about not being the team that performs extremely well for eight and two-thirds innings just to screw it up on the final out,' said...
Comment: The High Price of Low Rates
A low interest rate policy, while necessary in a crisis, acts as a tax on the average person and plants the seed for the next credit crisis, according to...
