Archive for the ‘Retirement’ Category
Retirement Healthcare for Middle Income Americans – Video
Posted: February 8, 2012 at 5:23 am
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Retirement Healthcare for Middle Income Americans - Video
Is Nick Diaz Going to Retire? – UFC 143 Post Fight Comments Raise Questions In My Personal Opinion! – Video
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Investing for retirement when you're just starting out
Posted: at 5:23 am
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- My granddaughter has asked me how to invest the money she'll contribute to her employer's retirement savings plan at her first job. I suggested she either go with a 2050 target-retirement fund or divide her money as follows: 40% in an S&P 500 index fund, 40% in a small-cap index fund and 20% in an international stock index fund. Do you think she should go with the first option, the second or do something else? -- Don G.
Kudos for recommending that your granddaughter take a diversified investment approach via a target-date fund or by spreading her money among more than one asset class herself.
I prefer your first recommendation -- the target-date fund -- over the second. The target-date fund is an excellent choice for almost anyone just starting out in his or her career.
The appealing feature of target-date funds is their simplicity. You choose a fund with a date that roughly corresponds to the year you'll retire -- 2050, 2060, whatever -- and you get everything you need rolled into one fund -- domestic stocks, international shares, a diversified portfolio of bonds. They are nice for newbie investors or anyone who lacks the time, skill or inclination to build and monitor a retirement portfolio on his or her own.
And while not all target-date funds provide those key ingredients in the same proportion, generally the portfolios have reasonable allocations. Most 2050 funds, for example, would have about 90% of their asset in stocks (with roughly 30% or so of that stake in foreign shares) and the rest in a diversified group of bonds. Over time, that mix automatically becomes more conservative, shifting toward bonds.
Target-date funds aren't perfect. Some may have bloated fees. And some can be much more aggressive than others, although that's more of a risk closer to or during retirement. In any case, don't invest and then completely forget about these target date funds. Check their performance from time to time and make sure you're comfortable with them, especially during market downturns.
Your second option -- having your granddaughter create her own portfolio --is also acceptable. She would just have to devote more time and effort to her investing by choosing funds, deciding how to divvy up her assets among different asset classes and rebalancing occasionally.
I would, however, recommend a few changes to the allocations you suggest. Your mix has her 100% invested in stocks. To be on the safe side, I'd recommend having a small slug of bonds, at least 10% or so.
Instead of allocating half of her domestic stock portfolio to volatile small-cap stocks, I'd recommend sticking closer to the market weighting for small- and mid-cap stocks. Combined, these stocks make up about 30% or so of the overall U.S. stock market.
The easiest way to do that would be to create a portfolio much like that of the typical 2050 target-date fund. Of course, if she's going to do that, then why not just stick with the 2050 fund itself? It would be easier, cleaner and less prone to mistakes (like failing to rebalance periodically).
One final note: Once she's settled on an investment strategy, tell her to contribute as much as she can afford to her plan, and certainly at least enough to take full advantage of any employer match.
Even though we tend to pay much more attention to the investing side of the retirement planning, diligent saving is the real engine for creating retirement wealth.
MONEY magazine is researching an article on ways to reduce the financial pain of college. We're looking for families that can talk about new and creative ways that they're raising cash for college and cutting costs while they're there. Sound like you? Tell us your story and you might even get your picture in the magazine! E-mail Beth_Braverman@moneymail.com.
First Published: February 7, 2012: 12:02 PM ET
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Investing for retirement when you're just starting out
New Study Suggests an Unconventional Approach May Help Boomers Prolong Retirement Savings
Posted: February 7, 2012 at 3:02 am
SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwire -02/06/12)- Brandes Investment Partners today released a new study by the Brandes Institute suggesting ways for investors to improve their financial prospects in retirement, including reducing the risk of outliving their assets ("money death"). The baby boom generation is now moving towards retirement age while longevity estimates suggest that their retirement may last much longer than expected. The study suggests that many of America's baby boomers could increase their retirement assets at advanced ages by maintaining a larger portion of their portfolios in higher-potential investments such as equities (rather than re-allocating prematurely into fixed income) and managing the risk of money death by investing a modest portion of their portfolio in longevity insurance. The study comes on the heels of the U.S. Treasury's plan to make it easier for defined contribution plans and IRAs to offer annuity options.
"Retirees in good health have a risk of outliving their assets regardless of their investment strategy. Our study suggests they may do better by aiming for superior long-term returns in their investment portfolios and dealing with money death risk separately," said Barry Gillman, Research Director, Brandes Institute Advisory Board. "This contradicts the conventional wisdom, which tells people to play it safe when they retire by moving a large portion of their portfolio to bonds.
"One problem with the conventional approach is that about 60% of the money distributed from typical retirement accounts should come from investment returns earned after retirement. Today's historically low yields are just not providing the returns retirees will likely need to sustain them.
"Until now, this approach has not been widely understood or used even by the healthy and wealthy individual investors who stand to benefit from it most. With the Treasury's new initiative to tear down some of the barriers to investing retirement savings in annuities, this could also become a practical solution for many participants with 401(k) and IRA savings."
The study cites evidence generated by the Brandes Retirement Simulator, a proprietary online model that projects a range of long-term asset outcomes based on an individual's personal finances and expected lifespan, as well as portfolio allocations and investment assumptions, and the use of longevity insurance. The full study is available on the firm's website at http://www.brandes.com/institute. Access to the Brandes Retirement Simulator will soon be available on the firm's website at no cost to retirees and advisors who can customize the inputs and integrate it into their retirement planning.
About Brandes
Brandes Investment Partners is a global investment advisory firm based in San Diego and along with its affiliates, manages more than $32 billion of assets as of December 31, 2011, for institutional and private clients worldwide. Since its inception in 1974, Brandes has applied the value investing approach to security selection pioneered by Benjamin Graham. Among the first investment firms to bring a global perspective to value investing, Brandes manages a variety of investment strategies.
Brandes Investment Partners, L.P. is a U.S. registered investment adviser. Brandes does not sell or endorse any insurance policy. More information can be found at http://www.brandes.com.
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New Study Suggests an Unconventional Approach May Help Boomers Prolong Retirement Savings
Children’s Hospital Boston Achieves Dramatic Employee Retirement Savings Improvement after Consolidating Benefits with …
Posted: at 3:02 am
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Fidelity Investments®, the leader in helping employees of health care organizations save for retirement1 , announced today that Children’s Hospital Boston dramatically improved the number of employees participating in its workplace retirement savings plan after consolidating plan administration solely with Fidelity last year. At year-end 2011, 95 percent of Children’s Hospital Boston’s 9,400 eligible employees were participating in the plan, up from 37 percent at the end of 20102 -- an unprecedented 160 percent increase. Fidelity services all the hospital’s nearly 11,000 retirement plan participants, including both current employees and retirees.
Together, Children’s Hospital Boston and Fidelity developed an innovative and comprehensive approach to serving the diverse needs of Children’s Hospital Boston employees and retirees. The offering includes comprehensive investment guidance, proactive and multi-touch communications, automatic enrollment of all new employees, and re-enrollment of those who were not in the retirement plan at year-end 2010. This powerful combination of automatic enrollment, guidance and engaging communications programs designed to meet the specific needs to Children’s Hospital Boston employees and retirees helped drive the hospital’s exceptional participation rate increase.
“At Children’s Hospital Boston we are committed to providing our employees and retirees with high-quality service and investment guidance to help them achieve their retirement goals,” said Dawn Socha, director of benefits for Children’s Hospital Boston. “We are thrilled with the progress that has been made with the innovative program we developed with Fidelity.”
“Fidelity is proud to be the sole retirement plan provider for Children’s Hospital Boston, an organization synonymous with building better futures for children and their families,” said John Ragnoni, executive vice president, Tax-Exempt Retirement Services, Fidelity Investments. “We are excited to work with Children’s Hospital Boston to develop and implement a program that has been so successful in helping their employees get on the path to reaching their long-term financial and retirement goals.”
Tailored Investment and Retirement Guidance
Fidelity’s comprehensive guidance programs help Children’s Hospital Boston participants across all ages and employment tenures make educated investment decisions. Programs include one-on-one consultations by phone or in person at Children’s Hospital Boston locations or at one of Fidelity’s eight Greater Boston Investor Centers. Participants also benefit from a wide range of onsite and online workshops and webinars, plus Fidelity’s full suite of online planning tools. In 2011 alone, more than 75 onsite workshops were offered at regional Children’s Hospital Boston locations across Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Three distinct age-based workshops provide educational investment guidance tailored to participants in various life stages:
For participants ages 25-40, workshops focus on enrolling in the plan, setting a deferral rate and financial topics beyond retirement planning, such as day-to-day budgeting. Guidance for participants ages 40-55 helps ensure optimal asset allocation and goal setting. For participants ages 55 or older, workshops are available to help participants prepare for retirement by creating a comprehensive retirement income plan. This includes getting to know the participants and their retirement goals, helping to create a retirement “paycheck” and explaining ways to help protect against taxes, inflation and rising health care costs.
About Fidelity Investments
Fidelity Investments is one of the world’s largest providers of financial services, with assets under administration of $3.4 trillion, including managed assets of $1.5 trillion, as of December 31, 2011. Founded in 1946, the firm is a leading provider of investment management, retirement planning, portfolio guidance, brokerage, benefits outsourcing and many other financial products and services to more than 20 million individuals and institutions, as well as through 5,000 financial intermediary firms. For more information about Fidelity Investments, visit http://www.fidelity.com.
Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, Member NYSE, SIPC
900 Salem Street, Smithfield, RI 02917
Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Company, Inc.
100 Salem St., Smithfield, RI 02917
Although consultations are one on one, guidance provided by Fidelity is educational in nature, is not individualized and is not intended to serve as the primary or sole basis for your investment or tax-planning decisions.
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© 2012 FMR LLC. All rights reserved.
1 Based on 2011 data sourced from LIMRA and Fidelity Market Insights Group.
2 Fidelity business data as of January 9, 2012.
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Children’s Hospital Boston Achieves Dramatic Employee Retirement Savings Improvement after Consolidating Benefits with ...
How Ethnicity Affects Retirement Savings
Posted: at 3:02 am
Ethnicity is a growing area of interest for banks, largely because they want to understand their customers better.
[50 Ways to Improve Your Finances in 2012]
By 2050, says Fred Makonnen, vice president of multicultural sales at ING, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans will make up the majority of the U.S. population, compared with just over one-third now. “We need to have, as an industry, products that can speak directly to these consumers. We’re seeing time and time again there is a significant gap between various ethnic groups … and the reasons tend to be embedded in cultural differences,” he says.
While he’s quick to add that the study reveals more similarities than differences, African American and Hispanic respondents tend use shorter time horizons when it comes to financial planning, which, he says, can get in the way of saving enough for retirement.
A new ING study, which was commissioned by the ING Retirement Research Institute and polled households with incomes over $40,000, found that 31 percent of African Americans, a higher percentage than any other group, list debt as an obstacle to saving, but they also were more financially prepared in certain areas, such as life insurance coverage. The study found that 1 in 4 African American respondents had life insurance valued at four to five times their current salary, compared with just 18 percent of total respondents.
The ING study also found that Hispanic respondents were more likely to sacrifice their own financial future for their children, a choice Makonnen says is most common among first-generation immigrants. “If you’re first-generation, the family unity is much stronger, especially in the Hispanic community. Over time, you’ll see less and less of that leaning on family as a financial security blanket,” he says.
A recent Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll similarly revealed that African American women are more likely to loan money to family or friends compared with white women (60 percent versus 52 percent) and to help friends or family with child care on a regular basis (36 percent versus 24 percent for white women).
In the ING study, Asian American respondents were the most prepared for retirement; on average, they had built savings of $81,000 in employee-sponsored plans, such as 401(k)s and $58,000 in other types of savings vehicles, such as CDs and IRAs. By comparison, Hispanic respondents reported having just $54,000 saved in retirement savings accounts.
Meanwhile, Asian American respondents demonstrated a different weak spot: estate planning. They were the least likely group to have a last will and testament (26 percent) compared with 37 percent of white respondents. Asian-American respondents were also more likely to prioritize splurges such as a nice car or home, over retirement savings. “Overall, Asians seem to believe that purchasing short-term goods and materials is a sign of success, and having physical possessions is very important,” says Makonnen.
[10 Ways to Save Your Retirement]
The ING study clearly demonstrated that the challenge of saving for retirement cuts across all ethnic groups. Close to half of all ethnic groups said they feel unprepared for retirement, ranging from 54 percent of Hispanic respondents to 44 percent of Asian American respondents. And when it comes to planning, close to 30 percent of all groups reported having formal investment plans, ranging from 28 percent for white respondents to 32 percent for African American respondents.
These findings suggest to Makonnen than banks can provide better tools and resources to reach out to certain groups to help them plan for retirement, he says. He works with historically black colleges and universities, for example, to launch “culturally-relevant” financial literacy programs. Because the study found that Hispanic and African American respondents were especially likely to look to their employers for retirement planning assistance, he also wants to investigate how ING can help employers with that. “[Employees] are not going to seek out information if they’re not in their comfort zone,” he says.
Among all groups, Makonnen adds, “We’re seeing less emphasis on planning going forward.” That’s a trend he wants to help reverse.
Twitter: @alphaconsumer
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How Ethnicity Affects Retirement Savings
Retirement savings plan: more transparency, more choice?
Posted: February 5, 2012 at 9:47 am
Retirement savings plan – the 401(k) – would give clearer guidance on fees and offer retirees more options, according to new proposed rules. One proposal would allow part of a retirement savings plan to convert to an annuity.
The Obama administration is taking steps to make the fees charged in a 401(k) retirement savings plan more transparent and broaden the options retirees have for drawing on their nest egg.
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The U.S. Treasury Department and Department of Labor each set forth new rules or proposed regulations that apply to 401(k) plans on Thursday.
Treasury's proposed regulations would make it easier for people with 401(k) plans to receive part of their funds as an annuity, a plan that pays out regularly over a lifetime.
Such plans can be useful options because people are living longer and some may end up outliving theirsavings or, fearful of such an outcome, hold back on spending more than necessary.
"Having the ability to choose from expanded options will help retirees and their families achieve both greater value and security," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said in a statement.
Upon retirement, people with savings in a 401(k) plan typically are given the choice to take a lump sum or receive funds as an annuity. The proposed regulations seek to make it simpler for companies to offer employees combinations of an annuity and a single-sum cash payment, and make it easier for retirees to buy so-called longevity annuities. Those start paying out when beneficiaries hit an advance age, say after age 80.
Treasury plans to finalize the regulations by the end of the year.
In addition, Treasury issued rules that apply to employers who offer 401(k) and defined benefit pension plans, which also pay out a set amount over a lifetime.
The rules aim to spell out the steps employers can take to let workers shift funds from their 401(k) accounts to their defined benefit plans, and clarify that employers can offer workers the option to use 401(k) savings to buy deferred annuities and still satisfy guidelines aimed at protecting a beneficiary's spouse.
Both rules went into effect on Thursday.
Labor's rule requires certain firms that run 401(k) and pension plans to disclose investment fees and other costs to employers.
Retirement plan companies will have to disclose direct and indirect compensation that they receive in connection to the services they provide.
Those firms must comply with the rule no later than Aug. 30.
"When businesses that sponsor retirement plans, and the workers who participate in those plans, get better information on associated fees and expenses, they'll be able to shop around and make informed decisions that will lead to cost savings and a larger nest egg at retirement," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis.
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Retirement savings plan: more transparency, more choice?
5 Biggest Retirement Planning Mistakes – Video
Posted: February 3, 2012 at 5:51 am
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5 Biggest Retirement Planning Mistakes - Video
Players tackle Manning retirement rumors – Video
Posted: February 2, 2012 at 9:43 pm
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Players tackle Manning retirement rumors - Video
Treasury, Labor Department announce retirement proposals
Posted: at 9:43 pm
The Obama administration proposed new rules Thursday to help retirees make their savings last throughout their lifetime -- by investing in annuities.
By taking out some of the regulatory roadblocks that have made annuities less attractive for employees and employers to add to their retirement plans, the government is hoping to give more Americans ways to keep income flowing later in life.
Annuities are investments that pay out fixed amounts of income at a future date. Depending on the type of annuity, you can receive payments on a monthly, annual or lump-sum basis.
The retirement rescue plan, which was announced in a joint press release by the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department, comes at a time when an increasing number of Americans are being forced to wait longer to retire and find themselves without enough money to live comfortably once they do reach their golden years.
The proposals are an extension of other measures that President Obama has put in place to help Americans save for retirement, including automatic enrollment in 401(k)s. The latest proposals will have to be approved by Congress.
Partial annuities: The first proposal would offer employees more options when it comes to how they cash out their pension plans at retirement. Upon retirement, employees typically face the option of either cashing out their pension or getting a lifetime income stream through an annuity. For many retirees, it's often much more appealing to just take the lump sum.
Don't outlive your savings: How annuities can help
Yet, this option often leads them to come up short on funds later on in retirement. To prevent this from happening, the government is encouraging retirees to take a combination of both approaches, or a partial annuity. The pension holder gets both a lump sum of money immediately upon retirement, but also receives income payments throughout retirement.
Many accounts don't offer this option, or if they do, employees are largely unaware it exists. In order to make this option clearer and more attractive, the government said it wants to simplify the way partial annuities are calculated, so that it's easier for employers to realize the potential benefit of this option and advertise it to employees.
Longevity annuities: The government also wants to make it easier for employees to invest in longevity annuities through their 401(k)s and IRAs. To do so, it wants to provide relief from minimum distribution requirements that could cause them to run out of money in retirement.
Want to buy an annuity? Don't wait for higher rates
Longevity annuities typically don't start making income payments until the investor is well into retirement, say 85 years old. When offered in 401(k)s and IRAs, these annuities are funded using part of the employee's retirement savings.
Under the minimum distribution requirement, individuals must begin taking payouts from their retirement plans soon after age 70. That minimum distribution amount is typically calculated by dividing the employee's entire account balance by their life expectancy.
Even though the retiree may not have access to the funds in the annuity, it's still used in the calculation that determines how much they must withdraw, putting them at risk of running out of money before they can access the funds from the annuity. As a result, many employees don't invest in longevity annuities.
In order to encourage more employees to choose this option, the government is proposing to ease the minimum distribution requirements for longevity annuities.
For annuities that cost up to 25% of the account balance or $100,000 (whichever is less) and that are scheduled to begin distributing income by age 85, the value of the annuity will not be included in the minimum distribution requirement calculation until the annuity begins.
401(k) fee disclosure: In addition to the new annuity proposals, the government also finalized a set of rules aimed at boosting transparency in the retirement market and allowing employers to shop around for the best plan.
Watch out for hidden 401(k) fees
The new rules require 401(k) providers to disclose to employers the fees that they pay for retirement plan administration and money management. The original deadline for compliance by the plan sponsors has been pushed back by three months, to July 1, the government said Thursday.
A separate proposal that would require 401(k) providers to publish a concise and easy-to-understand "roadmap" of their fees for employers was delayed prior to Thursday's announcement, but will be introduced in the "near future", according to the agencies.
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Treasury, Labor Department announce retirement proposals