Defined Benefits

With each passing day, the brave new world of cryptocurrencies is looking more like the perilous old world of Wall Street circa 1929 or 2008.

Since healthcare costs are the number one fear in retirement for Americans, this article will focus on which states are the least expensive to retire in based on healthcare costs.

What are the most common scenarios that give rise to private foundations converting to DAFs (or making a thoughtful decision not to convert), while preserving the original donor’s intent and satisfying the administrative concerns of surviving family members?

It came as a surprise when I found the annual report of the New Zealand SuperFund. While no one could fault it for sticking with passive investments, it chose a different path, with stunning results.

Social Security applies a substantially higher penalty on people subject to GPO for claiming widow(er) and spousal benefits prior to normal retirement age.

Believe it or not, we live in the best of times. It’s been a crazy few decades, with a pandemic, rising inequality, slowing growth and productivity, and major changes in the economy.

Who would want to be tasked with investing their own and other people’s money in companies run by weirdos and jerks? But that turns out to be one of the most important skill sets shared by successful venture capitalists.

The Social Security benefit formula is short-changing a select group of retirees, and the losses are apt to exceed $25,000 over a lifetime. There is no effort to fix the flaw, so the concern is on-going.

Treasuries extended their slump in New York, driving the yield on the benchmark 10-year note up by the most in more than three weeks, as renewed inflation concerns and economic data supported expectations for multiple Federal Reserve rate hikes in coming months.

Even in 2022, pensions still command an aura of reverence. A benefit where you work for one company for 30 years and then retire with a livable wage? And you don’t have to fret about picking investments? What’s not to like?

The following is a hypothetical and fictional account of how big tech can disrupt the wealth management industry. A back-to-client focus is discussed. reminiscent of how Apple’s Mac OS empowered users and supplanted predecessor operating systems.

Since the 1990s, the CalPERS sold LTC policies to its residents. The lawsuit over claims related to those policies illustrates the dangers clients face with government-sponsored insurance programs.

“That’s a great stock; I think I’ll take a big position in my portfolio.” That’s how all too many investors make their investment decisions. Mistake, big mistake. Use our Premium membership service to send this to clients and prospects with your firm’s logo.

The Fed is at a crucial junction, according to Lacy Hunt. It has to contain inflation. If not, the stability of the U.S. economy over the longer term is seriously in doubt.

Retirement is the most important goal clients discuss over the course of their professional relationship with advisors. One key piece is the way in which taxes are paid.

The Milken Institute Global Conference continues in Beverly Hills, California, bringing together investors, dealmakers, power brokers and celebrities to discuss markets and megatrends. Academics, sports stars, entrepreneurs and politicians among the thousands coming to the Beverly Hilton for the event, which runs through Wednesday.

The BOJ is trapped. It is conducting unlimited QE to keep rates low and weaken the yen, which promotes inflation.

Forward-thinking advisors have been searching for and employing analytics very carefully. This series will explore some of these metrics, along with their benefits and pitfalls. Today’s topic is capital markets assumptions.

In propping up Japan's economy and financial markets, its central bank indirectly provided liquidity to the world's financial markets. But the BOJ could unleash a liquidity vacuum felt around the world.

Many companies stack the deck in ways that often help their executives get big annual bonuses no matter how the business performs, Bloomberg Tax research shows. They “adjust” and boost the earnings numbers they use, or lower their own performance goals—making it more likely they’ll hit the targets that trigger bonus awards.

This is a hard time to retire. The market is down 7% from last year and the rate of inflation has risen to 8.5%. Both are brutal to your bottom line when you're on a fixed income. But buck up! As bad as things seem, odds are you are in better shape than your parents or grandparents. And if they got through retirement comfortably, so will you.

After a multi-decade pause, the winds of inflation have picked up. Only TIPS have been an effective hedge against inflation. Other asset classes have failed to varying degrees.

Millennials took one look at their financial future and, early on, realized it was bleak. The YOLO generation started saving for retirement — stuffing away money in 401(k)-type accounts — nine years earlier than their baby boomer parents did, according to a new study.

If your tax planning makes your clients’ life more difficult, you’re doing something wrong.

Can I afford to retire? Is it the right time? Here is how I answer those questions from my clients.

We’ll tackle IRMAA in this article. I’ll provide you with information to teach you how you might be able to get rid of IRMAA.

If you are under 45 and live in America or Europe, the odds are this past year has been your first real experience with inflation. Other than a blip in 2008, inflation has barely topped 3% in the last 30 years.

Long-maturity Treasuries are contending with their biggest drawdown on record, at least according to their most popular exchange-traded fund.

In this article, I will explain how to structure an income strategy that best serves the needs of constrained investors. Demographic, economic, cultural, and social forces argue for a new approach to retirement planning.

For years, small accounts have been overcharged and underserved. I’m encouraged, however, by what I see some advisors doing, I wish the rest of the profession were inspired to similarly elevate the value provided for the price charged small clients.

Now that inflation is back, it's not going away anytime soon. The Federal Reserve expects it to fall below 3% next year and eventually go back to 2%. But there are reasons to think that’s far too optimistic. We are living in a new world. Even after things get back to normal that could mean inflation averages 4% or even 5% for the foreseeable future.

People tend to associate environmental, social and governance investing with stock-picking, a way to sort through companies based on their ESG practices. But not every investor can be choosy about the companies they own. Big pension, endowment and sovereign wealth funds oversee tens of billions and even trillions of dollars, which means they have to own practically everything.

In my work with clients, one of the most important services I provide, in addition to coaching on finance, estate planning, and investing, is facilitating cross-generational conversations about what it means to have wealth, and especially about what it means to use wealth wisely.

Antti Ilmanen’s Investing Amid Low Expected Returns updates his 2011 Expected Returns, a volume considered by many the definitive work on the subject.

The last three years have been so relentlessly dismal — a global pandemic followed by the invasion of Ukraine — that it is tempting to idealize the old days. Just as the survivors of World War I looked back on the Edwardian era as one long country house weekend (“Stands the church clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea?”), so we observers of Ukraine’s agonies may think of the pre-Wuhan world as one of peace and prosperity. Yet in fact it was an era of sustained disappointment punctuated by the occasional crisis.

Banks are gearing up to offload billions of dollars in junk debt backing leveraged buyouts, counting on the nascent stability in the market to finally get rid of underwrites for businesses such as Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc and Unilever Plc’s tea unit.

The U.S. government has long offered myriad contrivances and enticements to get Americans to save enough for a comfortable retirement — so far with woefully inadequate results. But why should it be involved at all? Why can’t people be responsible enough to prepare for an entirely foreseeable event?

Add this to the pandemic lesson book: People may be willing to give up their homes in high-cost, densely packed coastal cities, but they still want their coastal lifestyles — just with a little more space, cheaper real estate and warmer weather.

Since market efficiency is the primary driver of the rise of passive investing and the demise of active management, the structure of wealth management investment offerings is at stake.

America is facing a retirement crisis. Most experts agree that a significant portion of the population will lack the resources to live comfortably after they stop working. This, in turn, will place an increasing burden on the country’s social safety net.

Advisors need to understand how crypto markets work and how to make crypto part of a balanced portfolio to take advantage of this opportunity.

The same morning Russia invaded Ukraine, the people running the Church of England’s $5 billion pension fund decided they’d seen enough, and quickly went to work to clear their portfolio of Russian investments.

U.S. politicians from New York to California are calling for public pensions to shed hundreds of millions of dollars in investments tied to Russia. So far, the retirement funds aren’t moving quickly to divest. In many cases, they can’t.

Interest-only variable annuity policies have zero commissions, no surrender charges and low annual M&E and admin fees plus various subaccounts that span traditional and alternative investment strategies.

The unfettered boom in ESG debt has created some accounting concerns that are in urgent need of regulatory attention, according to Europe’s markets watchdog.

The world’s pension funds are growing as an ageing population puts more money aside to pay for retirement. The global total has doubled in the past decade to almost $57 trillion. But the biggest pool of savings risks missing out on both diversification and returns by restricting its investments to its domestic markets.

Online brokers like Robinhood Markets Inc. and crypto assets might get the headlines, but the Securities and Exchange Commission’s parallel effort to drag private-equity firms and hedge funds out of the shadows will have far more impact on far more lives.

Those nearing or in retirement are worried about what higher-than-expected inflation will mean. Here are a few things to consider to temper their anxiety.

You have a niche market selected, but now comes the tricky part: determining whether the niche is a viable client base. Here are 11 questions to help you assess whether you picked a good niche.

Hedge funds have long been criticized for underperforming the bull market in stocks for the past decade. But as markets get more challenging and interest rates climb, it’s their risk-management skills – not their performance record – that could underpin an upturn in the industry’s fortunes.

First the economy overheats, then winter comes to Wall Street. January was especially horrible for the cutting-edge investor, and February might be even worse. At the end of last month, big tech stocks were down nearly 8%, according to the New York Stock Exchange’s FANG+ index — and that was before shares of Meta Platforms Inc. (the company formerly known as Facebook) fell off a cliff last week.