Retirement planning

For the past year, investors have been nervously avoiding stocks and pumping billions of dollars into bonds and bond mutual funds, but a new study indicates that a large percentage of investors may have a limited understanding of how bonds work.

Fidelity has adjusted the holdings in its Freedom Fund lifecycle line as well as other asset allocation portfolios to include more international stocks, commodities and TIPS. International exposure throughout all of the Freedom Funds will rise from an average of 20% to 30%, with exposure to U.S. stocks falling commensurately.

The Hartford Financial Services Group has created a new division called Hartford Life Distributors in which all sales and marketing for both investment and retirement products will be handled. This includes all strategic relationship management and business development for mutual fund, annuities, 401(k) plans and 529s.

Wholesale changes are in store for both pension and 401(k) plans, according to a survey of 140 financial executives by Prudential Financial and CFO Research Services.

Putnam Investments has unveiled the industry’s first absolute-return target-date funds, which will combine both conventional investing strategies with absolute-return methods that seek to mitigate market volatility.

John Hancock Retirement Plan Services has formed a distribution partnership with Edward Jones that makes Hancock’s 401(k) platform, complete with the Guaranteed Income For Life feature, available to the brokerage’s 12,000 financial advisers.

President Obama outlined a series of initiatives the federal government would take to help people boost their retirement savings, including allowing them to direct tax refunds, pay raises and unused vacation pay to their nest eggs.

In the eight months since their launch in January, Putnam Investments' new family of absolute-return mutual funds has attracted more than $400 million in new investments and, according to the firm, is on track to top $1 billion by the end of the year.

These firms topped the list of the best variable-annuity websites for advisors in a new survey by kasina.

On the eve of “401(k) Day,” Sept. 11, themed “Make Wise Choices” this year, the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council issued a statement praising the 401(k) as “an island of stability during the current economic crisis.”

Commonwealth Financial Network will require advisers to earn credentials in fiduciary practices or retirement planning as part of its new Retirement Plan Consulting Program.

Morningstar is offering advisers in-depth research reports for 20 of the largest target-date mutual fund series, based on five components making up the “five P’s”: People, Parent, Performance, Portfolio and Price. A pared-down version is also available to individual investors.

President Obama outlined a series of initiatives the federal government would take to help people boost their retirement savings.

When like-named target-date funds experienced a wide range of investment returns in 2008, regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Labor took notice.

Many investors are still too afraid to get back into the stock market, and their hesitancy is putting a drag on the market’s resurgence, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Fifty-four percent of workers are satisfied with their company’s retirement program, and 61% say it is their primary retirement savings vehicle, Watson Wyatt found in a survey of 2,200 workers in February. Twenty-nine percent said that were it not for their retirement plan, they would not be saving for retirement.

Bank sales of fixed annuities reached $8.7 billion in the second quarter, according to Beacon Research in Chicago, a drop in sales from $10.9 billion in the first quarter.

MetLife's Broker-Dealer Group has introduced MetLife Fund Management Services, an investment advisory solution targeted at emerging investors.

Vanguard released findings of the investing behavior and performance of its 401(k) investors in 2008, showing remarkable resilience in the face of steep market declines.

Cake Financial Thursday introduced a $99-a-year automated service that attempts to tailor a mutual fund portfolio to an investor’s existing holdings, salary, age and desired retirement age by showing them lower-cost, less risky and better-performing choices.