Bob Pozen Knows Retirement

By Kerry Pechter
'My proposal was to link the growth of Social Security benefits of the upper third of earners to CPI growth while letting the benefits of the lower third of earners continue to rise with the wage index,' said the former president of Fidelity Investments in this wide-ranging interview.

No-Nonsense Income Planning

By Kerry Pechter
Jim Otar has explained his "zone" approach to retirement income planning in hundreds of presentations to thousands of advisors since 1997. He spoke at the IMCA retirement conference in Scottsdale earlier this month.

Waiting on the Fed

By Kerry Pechter
'The long end of the curve will stay stable but the front end of the curve will go up, so that we’ll have eventually have 2.5% at the short end and a long end between 2.5% and 3%,' predicted a BNP Paribas managing director recently. (Pictured: Janet Yellen.)

Removing ‘Lapse Risk’ from Variable Annuities

By Kerry Pechter
“Almost every major variable annuity writer has absorbed large write-downs on ‘policyholder behavior assumption updates,’” said a Munich Re executive. “So how do we take out that risk?”
Featured

The Perils of Fed Gradualism

By Stephen S. Roach
Our guest columnist wants interest rates to rise faster. 'A steeper normalization path would produce an outcry,' he writes. 'But that would be far preferable to another devastating crisis.'

Damage Assessment: Who’s Hurt by New Fiduciary Rule?

By Kerry Pechter
Advisors who sell on commission, I-banks that underwrite securities and sell them through their own broker-dealers, and recordkeepers that capitalize on their access to participants should all beware the DOL's impending conflict-of-interest rule, says Cerulli Associates.
News

New ERISA Advisory Council members appointed

By Editorial Staff
Three represent the public, three represent employers, and three represent employee organizations. The fields of insurance, corporate trust, actuarial counseling, investment counseling, and investment management and accounting have one representative each.

Schlichter law firm sues Insperity over high plan fees

By Editorial Staff
The complaint alleges that “Insperity breached its fiduciary duties by causing the plan participants to pay millions of dollars in excessive recordkeeping fees to Insperity’s proprietary subsidiary, Insperity Retirement Services," according to a law firm press release.

Retirement assets dip to $23.5 trillion in 3Q2015: ICI

By Editorial Staff
IRAs, since 2007 the largest component of US retirement savings, held $7.3 trillion in assets at the end of the third quarter of 2015, down 4.8% from the previous quarter, ICI reported. Almost half of IRA assets, or $3.4 trillion, was invested in mutual funds.