La Vida Robo

After MIT and a stint at Merrill Lynch, Carlos Garcia decided to start Finhabits, the first bilingual English and Spanish robo-advisor and savings tool. It's for first-time savers. It's also one of the first options available on the Washington State retirement plan marketplace.
Anecdotal Evidence

How Not to Sell an Indexed Annuity

By Kerry Pechter
Five financial professionals commented on our April 5 story about my neighbor's encounter with an advisor who recommended an indexed annuity for lifetime income. She should 'run like hell,' one of them wrote.
Mergers

AXA IPO attracts $2.75 billion

By Editorial Staff
AXA, which is Europe’s second-biggest insurer by market capitalization behind Allianz, has said that the proceeds will help finance its earlier acquisition of insurer XL Group.
Demographics

Working 9-to-?

By Editorial Staff
'Each one percentage point increase in Social Security's Delayed Retirement Credit is associated with a roughly one percentage point increase in the employment rate of men ages 65 to 69,' a new study points out.
Qualified plans

Unequal plan coverage persists, report shows

By Editorial Staff
'In 2016, the participation rate was just 47.3% of family heads with annual family income of $10,000 – $24,999, compared with 89.9% for those with annual family income of $100,000 or more,' a new report from the Employee Benefits Research Institute said.

Honorable Mention

By Editorial Staff
Principal Financial to purchase more shares, Prudential inks longevity transfer deal and publishes financial wellness study, FedEx buys group annuity from MetLife, Piwowar resigns from the SEC, and Nationwide invests in fintech.

COVER STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

May 3, 2018

The Bucket Brigade

By Kerry Pechter
Time-segmentation stands at the intersection of insurance and investments, of modern portfolio theory and asset/liability matching, and of behavioral finance and quantitative analysis.
April 26, 2018

With FIA Caps, Higher is Better

By Kerry Pechter
CANNEX, the real-time annuity rate provider, has published a study that compares hypothetical fixed indexed annuity returns with the returns of multi-year guaranteed rate annuities. Cannex recently added FIAs to its data platform. ...
April 19, 2018

Retirement Wonks and Honky-Tonks

By Kerry Pechter
Having stopped Congress from cutting tax breaks for savers in December's tax bill, the American Retirement Association celebrated with three-days of reflection and revelry in Nashville.