Retirement Watch Weekly
The Bull vs. The Bear
It’s rare there’s a day with the stark contrast we saw yesterday. In the April issue of Retirement Watch, I remarked that I don’t recall see such a sharp divide between those who are optimistic and pessimistic about the stock markets. We saw that clearly yesterday. First, Goldman Sachs came out with a report arguing […]
Another Annuity Exit
The Fed’s zero interest rate policy and some other factors have been hard on insurers, especially those who sell annuities. They can’t promise the guaranteed income they used to when short-term interest rates are near zero and long-term rates are less than 4%. As a result, a number of firms have exited the business or […]
Struggling to Understand Social Security
Yesterday I reported that the 2012 Retirement Confidence Survey found that more Americans report Social Security is an important part of their retirement income security. Yet, most older Americans are remarkably unfamiliar with the program and how the decisions they make can dramatically change the their lifetime income and that of their spouses. This an […]
Still Worried About Retiring
The good news is that Americans halted a several year slide in their confidence about being able to afford retirement. The bad news is that the confidence level is low and Americans aren’t any more confident than they were last year. That’s the conclusion of the annual 2012 Retirement Confidence Survey by the Employee Benefits […]
How Much Economic Security Do Seniors Have?
Economic security, or insecurity, on an aggregate basis is tough to measure. We’ve all seen the surveys that report the average American family has only a relatively few thousand dollars saved for retirement. But those surveys include all age groups. So the kids in their 20s just starting out are included with those in or […]
Losing Another Long-Term Care Option
Long-term care insurance has had its troubles the last couple of years. Sales of the policies still haven’t approached sales levels many anticipated as the Baby Boomers age. There are a range of reasons: high cost, complicated terms, people not wanting to think about it, and more. The companies also are troubled by low interest […]
Why Buy-and-Hold Investing Doesn’t Work
Andrew Lo is a bright economist at MIT who also is involved with several financial firms. A few years ago he coined the term adaptive markets to explain something we’ve been saying for years. Markets are composed of people, and people don’t react the same way to the same stimulus every time. They learn, or […]
Estimating Life Expectancy – Some New Data
You can’t do a retirement planning without an estimate of how long retirement will last. There’s no way, of course, to know how long you’ll live. But you can establish some probabilities. Interestingly there’s some new data on life expectancy and death rates as we age. For about a couple of centuries, statisticians believed death […]
