Weighing the Value of a Variable Annuity

A VA lifetime withdrawal benefit—especially one with a 'ratchet'—can provide the upside potential and downside protection that many Boomers want in retirement, say researchers Petra Steinorth and Olivia Mitchell. But a life annuity offers a higher dose of "AEW."

De-Risky Business

Squeezed by low interest rates, variable annuity issuers have no choice but to keep trimming their benefits. In this review, a VA expert surveys the summertime activity of (and skuttlebutt related to) major manufacturers.

New York Life Remixes the Variable Annuity

You've heard of New York Life's Guaranteed Future Income, where clients pay today for lifetime income several years from now. A new NYL product, Income Plus, also locks in future income, but lets policyholders put some money at risk during the waiting period, a recent prospectus shows.

Float Through Retirement on a CDA

Contingent deferred annuities (CDAs) are income guarantees for managed accounts. Their biggest regulatory hurdle may have been cleared last February, when an NAIC committee agreed that CDAs are annuities and not financial guaranty insurance.
Featured

Who’s Afraid of the Fiscal Cliff?

Not Bill Gale of the Brookings Institution. He recommends that we let the Bush tax cuts expire and the automatic spending cuts occur—and then to build a more sensible fiscal compromise on top of their ruins.
News

GDP growth rate of 2.8% predicted for 4Q 2012: Prudential

The 1.5% GDP growth in Q2 was due to weaker consumer and government spending and a negative trade balance. Bright spots were solid business investment spending and housing as well as a rise in inventories, according to Prudential strategist John Praveen.

The Bucket

Brief and late-breaking items from Natixis Global Asset Management, Symetra, Fidelity, Allianz Life and Genworth.

“Quote” of the Week

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise"--F. Scott Fitzgerald, from "The Crack-Up."

On Moshe Milevsky’s “The 7 Most Important Equations”

Each chapter in Prof. Milevsky's latest book focuses on a different important mathematical equation, on the genius who created it (or who won credit for creating it), and the application of that equation to retirement income problems.