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.

The Outer Limits of Outsourcing

Advisors can’t do everything themselves. But they need to be careful in choosing what to hand off to a software tool, a vendor or an assistant.

Four Income Planning Tools

Here are brief reviews of four noteworthy but not-widely-known retirement income planning software tools, provided by the publisher of Virtual Office News and the T3 Newsletter. Mr. Bruckenstein is also a CFP.
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New York Life resolves itself to a duo

The company reorganized itself into two basic divisions, an Insurance Group run by Chris Blunt and an Investments Group run by John Y. Kim. Kim will succeed Blunt as head of the Retirement Income Security (RIS) business.

The Bucket

Brief or late-breaking items from Milliman, the Insured Retirement Institute, the Financial Planning Association, the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education, Fidelity, Swiss Re, Putnam Investments, DTCC, the American Academy of Actuaries, the Society for Human Resource Management, and Ameriprise Financial.

Burton Malkiel Talks About Efficient Markets

In this video sponsored by Vanguard, Burton Malkiel, Princeton professor and author of "A Random Walk Down Wall Street," talks with RIJ editor Kerry Pechter about what "efficient market" means to him. The 10th edition of "A Random Walk" has just been published.

The Red (Ink) Peril

A British Lord, professor emeritus and biographer of John Maynard Keynes explains why government debt is a misused scare tactic.