Retirement Section

News

New AARP Funds Chief Plans to Expand Offerings

New Focus on Retirement Income, Calculators

As Annuity Sales Boom, Regulators Take Notice

FINRA, SEC, State Insurance Commissioners Increase Scrutiny

Barclays to Offer Target-Date & Target Risk ETFs

Funds-of-Funds to Draw From Existing iShares

NAVA and IBM Launch Sales Automation Initiative

Process Streamlines Annuity Sales

Pensions Stimulate Economy, Congress Told

Plans Play Critical Role in Retirement Security

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Articles

Give Mutual Fund Investors the 'Gold Card' Treatment

Get a little imagination, guys. It never ceases to surprise me how uninspired most financial services, and in particular, mutual fund, advertisements are. Only two come to mind as standouts: AXA's ads with the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room, representing the big question of how underprepared most people are for retirement, and another, by an investment firm I cannot even remember, in which an older couple resort to comically drastic financial measures, like taking in an unlikely boarder in order to get by.

Equity Mutual Funds Slip 15 Basis Points in 2Q08

Mutual fund investors held resilient in the second quarter of the year, 'shrugging off weakness in the labor and housing markets and even ignoring the rising cost of oil and gas,' announced Tom Roseen, senior research analyst for Lipper, during the firm's press conference last Tuesday on the quarter's results. 'We saw in the headlines that it was a very bad quarter, the worst quarter for the Dow since 1929, but I think you are going to see that that's not the case for mutual funds,' Roseen said. 'Certainly for a lot of the big, large-cap and value-oriented funds it was a real dour quarter and a horrible month in May, but if you take a grander look at things, the first two months of the quarter were really, really good.'

The Mighty Baby Boomers

Baby Boomers now comprise half to three-quarters of the clients of fee-based advisers and independent reps, a new wealth report found.

Target-Date Funds May Not be Best DC Option: Enormously Popular Category Has Yet to be Perfected

Despite their tremendous growing popularity for their set-it-and-forget it convenience of automatically reallocating equity-to-fixed income ratios every year for 401(k) investors, target-date mutual funds may not be the best option for defined contribution plans.

Death Knell for Dominance In 401(k)s, Edelman Says

The Supreme Court's recent decision in LaRue v DeWolff to permit workers in 401(k) plans to sue administrators for high fees will inevitably lead to lower fees-and the end of the retail mutual fund industry's dominance of the market. That's the strong opinion of widely quoted, and frequent financial TV guest Ric Edelman. This past February the Supreme Court ruled in favor of James LaRue, a worker suing the administrators of his 401(k) pension plan on breach of fiduciary duties, Edelman, a financial planner, notes. LaRue claimed that DeWolff, Boberg & Associates, Inc. ignored LaRue's instruction to change to more stable investments, eventually leading to depletion of his pension by approximately $150,000. The Supreme Court ruled that this was a breach of fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

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