The Best Retirement Research of 2011
What were the most significant decumulation research papers published last year? These ten articles can certainly claim to be among them.
Halfway Back to Prosperity?
Carmen Reinhart, co-author with Kenneth Rogoff of the best-selling "This Time Is Different," spoke at the IMCA conference in New York this week. We're five years into a 10-year recovery from the credit binge, she said.
Sounds Like a Plan
A directory of 27 software tools accompanies this overview of the rapidly evolving financial planning technology industry.
Lion’s Share
ING U.S. Retirement will combine its own target date funds with the AllianceBernstein three-insurer annuity platform to offer a lifetime income option to its 52,000 small and mid-sized plans.
Featured
Vocal reactions to the New 401(k) Rules
Professionals from across the retirement income industry express their views of the DoL/Treasury announcement last week on fee disclosure and annuities.
An Interview with David Wray
Don't expect participants to revolt when they see how high their 401k fees are, and don't expect 12b-1 fees to disappear, said the president of the PSCA. But the problem of 'fee bracket creep' should be fixed by new federal rules.
News
Supply-demand imbalance to weigh on US yields: BlackRock
“The biggest dynamic is simply the lack of supply in fixed income,” a BlackRock executive said. “We are seeing something we have not seen for at least 25 years.”
‘Toxic’ annuity market exists in UK: Report
Under the current system, many new retirees from employer-sponsored plans fail to shop around for the best income annuity.
Sales mount for New York Life’s deferred income annuity
The nation's largest mutual insurer said Guaranteed Future Income is the “fastest growing annuity product solution in the company’s history.”
Capital One’s bid for ING Direct could be approved this week—or not
Capital One said it would remain a “traditional bank” and hold just 1.5% of total U.S. deposits if the deal goes through.
Answers to the eternal question: What do women want?
A Hearts & Wallets study found that women tend to own fewer types of investment products than men, and have higher allocations to bank products.
The Bucket
Brief or late-breaking items from the Retirement Income Industry Association, the Defined Contribution Institutional Investors Association, Lincoln Financial, and Prudential Retirement.
