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American workers exited 2010 with more than $10.2 trillion invested in employer-sponsored retirement plans, up 10% from the $9.3 trillion in play at the close of 2009, according to a new report from Chicago-based affluent investor consultant Spectrem Group.The beefed-up portfolios is just the latest sign that investors are finally starting to regain confidence in the market and, perhaps more important, making a concerted effort to stash away assets for their golden years.

Last week’s stock market decline may be the low from which the market will rebound from, according to BlackRock’s Chief Equity Etrategist Bob Doll.

The retirement conundrum of how much money is enough is an ongoing battle that impacts both men and women, but one area where men seem to be winning out is retirement confidence, according to EBRI’s 2011 Retirement Confidence Survey released last week.

A popular axiom – referred to as Occam’s razor - holds that we should tend towards simpler approaches until we must trade simplicity for increased explanatory power. For estate trustees and beneficiaries considering tax strategies in the disposition of 2010 estate assets, this principle is a sound guideline.

Certainly, communication breakdowns are headaches. But when political tumult grips North Africa and the Middle East, and the earthquake and tsunami disasters in Japan actually go nuclear, make sure that there are no breakdowns between your practice and your clients.

ProShares has launched an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that will provide investors inverse exposure to the high yield bond market‹a first for the market, the Bethesda, Md.-based ETF manager said in a statement today.

Despite the turmoil in the Middle East and the potential for nuclear catastrophe in Japan, he wrote, “our assessment is that none of these risks have yet derailed or will derail, the global economic recovery or the longer-term bull market in equities.”

Direxion has launched three single-inverse fixed income exchange-traded funds to permit investors to wager on decreases in interest rates. They are the Total Bond Market Bear 1x Shares, the Daily 7-10 Year Treasury Bear 1x Shares and the Daily 20+ Year Treasury Bear 1x Shares ETFs. They seek 100% of the inverse of the daily performance of, respectively, the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, NYSE 7-10 Year Treasury Bond Index and NYSE 20-Year Plus Treasury Bond Index.

American workers exited 2010 with more than $10.2 trillion invested in employer-sponsored retirement plans, up 10% from the $9.3 trillion in play at the close of 2009, according to a new report from Chicago-based affluent investor consultant Spectrem Group.

While tens of thousands of independent financial advisors looking to build their brand and their book of business are just now warming to social media, most are still reluctant to jump in with both feet due to compliance and regulatory issues set forth by FINRA, the SEC and FSA, most of which deal with archiving and recalling all correspondence to protect investors.