Practice

According to the 12th Annual survey from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies released on Tuesday, a substantial number of Americans are unprepared for retirement and many do not have a backup plan if they are forced into retirement earlier than planned.

The vast majority of American employees are still under financial strain, even when the study looked at the least vulnerable demographic groups—men, those between ages 55 and 64, and workers who earned between $150,000 and $199,999 a year.

Allianz Global Investors white paper authored by UCLA professor Shlomo Benartzi is offering several tools drawn from the field of behavioral finance to help advisers help their clients.

The unit of Bank of America Private Wealth Management said Wednesday that it hired Greg Khost as a managing director and regional executive in Florham Park, N.J., Donald R. Quattrucci, as a managing director and market investment executive in Rhode Island, and Nancy E. Anderson, as a senior vice president and private client advisor in Minneapolis.

I've put on my annual to-do list that sometime this year I'll create a Facebook page, and Lord help me, I may even start twittering before long. This means I'm about to stick my toe into the dreaded Social Media world.

Senators Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) have proposed the Savings Enhancement by Alleviating Leakage in 401(k) Savings Act (SEAL), which would limit the number of loans that participants can take from their 401(k) to no more than three at a time.

Despite the widely held belief that younger investors have become tremendously risk-averse due to the economic crisis, Vanguard is finding that younger investors have increased their equity exposure considerably.

Since most participants accept the deferral rates that are automatically set in 401(k) plans, sponsors should increase those rates to at least 6% or higher, The Principal says.

Deciding what do to with an old 401(k) or other workplace retirement plan may not seem complicated, but a surprising number of participants do not understand which options are available to them, according to a survey by Fidelity Investments.

If financial advisors really want to increase the likelihood that their clients will commit to and execute on the retirement savings plans they've devised, they should ask less questions, use lots of simple visual aids and talk to them like eight-year-old children.