Retirement planning

MassMutual Retirement Services’ 2011 campaign to prompt 401(k) participants to save more has succeeded in boosting deferral rates by 4.34%. It also was aimed at getting those who were not saving into the game, and helping those with portfolios to revisit their allocations.

401K GPS has launched it personalized 401(k) monitoring service, to ensure participants’ strategies fit their risk profile. While the service monitors portfolios on a daily basis, it issues quarterly recommendations on how investors should reallocate their holdings, based on retirement goals and market expectations. Should volatility in the markets become pronounced, 401K GPS will issue intra-quarterly alerts.

With people living longer and retirements stretching to 35 years, the need for income is greater than ever.

The director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute discusses how financial advisors can best serve baby boomers.

Whether it's simple or not, retirement plans are suddenly important to small business owners.

Retired investors revolt against failed investment strategies.

Calculating the worth of your practice requires placing a value on different types of capital.

A significant number of advisors who serve 401(k) plans will ramp up their retirement income planning practices over the next few years, according to a new report from Principal Financial, called the “2011 Best Practices in Retirement Income Planning Study.”

New York Life Retirement Plan Services has reorganized into four industry-focused service teams serving: Taft-Hartley, technology, finance and professional services, and manufacturing, materials and retail. Each of these teams will have its own relationship managers, communications consultants, investment specialists and ERISA consultants.

Eighty-four percent of 401(k) sponsors surveyed by Mercer and the U.S. SIF Foundation (formerly known as the Social Investment Forum Foundation) believe that sustainable and socially responsible investing (SRI) funds will either hold steady or grow in the next five years.

Last month the Insured Retirement Institute released yet another in the long line of reports indicating the majority of baby boomers are nowhere near ready for retirement. Since we can’t slow down the clock to give them more time to prepare their financial capital, consultant and author Keith Weber says maybe it’s time we start helping them prepare their human capital.

Investors who relied on professional help in the form of target-date funds, managed accounts and advice earned nearly three percentage points more than those that did not, according to an analysis of eight large defined contribution plans between 2006 and 2010 by Aon Hewitt and Financial Engines. The plans covered 400,000 participants with $25 billion in assets.

Retirement Benefits Group on Monday announced that three retirement specialists from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s The Fraser Group have joined the San Diego-based retirement-focused branch of LPL Financial.

Investors reaching or in retirement are much more likely to stay in the stock market if they’re invested in financial products that provide guaranteed income. That was one of the major findings this week from an online survey Prudential conducted in May of this year.

Investors reaching or in retirement are more likely to stay in the stock market if they’re invested in financial products that provide guaranteed income, an online survey of 1,000 Americans shows.

Fidelity Investments racked up defined contribution commitments in the first half of the year totaling 315,000 participants, 269 plans and $17 billion in assets under administration, the company says.

While the recent FPA Convention provided some new and very interesting presentations and introduced some pretty high-brow concepts, Financial Planning columnist Bob Veres felt far too many of the presentations were bogged down by speakers who decided -- or were compelled -- to “dumb down” the material to appeal to the lowest common denominator. What did you think?

Janus Capital Group has unveiled a new online retirement income distribution tool aimed at helping financial advisers keep their clients’ retirement income evenly flowing for more than 30 years.

Janus Capital Group has unveiled a new online retirement income distribution tool aimed at helping financial advisors keeping their clients’ retirement income evenly flowing for more than 30 years.

By tapping into the psychology of why many clients resist financial advice, planners can help them conquer self-defeating beliefs that may block financial success.