A Genuine ‘Value Fund’ Is Hard to Find

"Even if the fund says ‘value,’ there’s no likelihood that it’s a value fund,” said Martin Lettau of UC-Berkeley, co-author of a study showing that Dimensional's value funds may be the only funds in the US that hold primarily high book-to-value stocks.
Legislation

New Social Security Bill Calls for Tax and Benefit Hikes

By Kerry Pechter
The bill proposes slowly raising the payroll tax by 1.2 percentage points for employers and employees over the next 23 years, and applies the payroll tax to incomes above $400,000 in addition to those below $132,900 (per current law).
Indicator Watch

Fourth Quarter Fears are Disappearing

By Stephen Slifer
'The stock market’s slide late last year was unnerving... Our sense was that the economic fundamentals remained solid and that the selloff was nothing more than exaggerated stock market noise,' writes our guest columnist, an economist.
Anecdotal Evidence

Alliance for Lifetime Income Sponsors Rolling Stones’ New Tour

By Kerry Pechter
The two dozen life insurers and asset managers in the Alliance for Lifetime Income have purchased sole signage sponsorship of the Rolling Stones 2019 US tour. The Alliance expects its message to reach 1.5 million concert-goers and 24 million more people through social media. But is the campaign too subtle to sell annuities?

Honorable Mention

By Editorial Staff
Sweeping bipartisan retirement bill reintroduced; OneAmerica and Broadridge create Collective Investment Trust data resource; Empower launches Snapchat and Instagram campaigns; Equity funds rebound in January: TrimTabs; Oregon auto-IRA program gathers momentum.

COVER STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

January 31, 2019

An FIA Designed By RIAs

By Kerry Pechter
The "ClearLine" fixed indexed annuity was developed by Security Benefit Life and DPL Financial Partners with input from the registered investment advisors who use DPL's no-commission annuity purchasing platform.
January 25, 2019

Notable Retirement Research of 2018

By Kerry Pechter
Our selection of ten outstanding retirement-related research papers from 2018 starts off with a summary of Joe Tomlinson's proposal for three new annuity products that have never been issued but should be, in his...
January 17, 2019

Annuities, RIAs and ‘Cargo Cult’ Thinking

By Kerry Pechter
Brighthouse Financial's Shield structured annuity joins products from Allianz Life, Jackson National and Global Atlantic on the Envestnet Insurance Exchange, where annuity issuers hope to engage registered investment advisors. An interview with Envestnet president...