"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 that once the market has peaked, its fall will be both prolonged and steep," writes the author of the Prudent Bear blog.

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 year in real income would cost $1.24 million, he calculates.

What will happen in the retirement industry in 2014? Beats me. I can only share a few of the things I hope might happen.

The free software will gradually become available through Bill Sharpe's blog, Retirementincomescenarios, and through the website, scratch.mit.edu.

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 new report.

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 bode well for the S&P500 Index in 2014.