Retirement planning

Millionaires became slightly more optimistic about the future of the U.S. economy in May, according to Spectrem's Millionaire Investor Index.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has a pair of initiatives designed to strengthen its position in the asset management market.

Walter Ricciardi, the Security and Exchange Commission’s deputy director of the Division of Enforcement, announced he will retire this month to join the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP as a partner.

Industry leader SEI recently concluded in a white paper that collective investment trusts (CITs) are becoming more popular in the defined-contribution retirement market. In the first quarter of 2008 alone, 63 new collective trusts were launched, and from 2004 to 2007 CIT assets actually tripled.

WASHINGTON - Exchange traded funds (ETFs) have been growing by leaps and bounds lately, but you ain't seen nothin' yet, said a panel of executives involved in creating and distributing ETFs, speaking at the Investment Company Institute's general membership meeting here two weeks ago.

The mood at the Investment Company Institute's 50th Annual General Membership Meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, themed "Our Foundations, Our Future," was markedly upbeat. Certainly, this is welcome and refreshing, especially following the dot-com crash of 2000-2001, the mutual fund scandals of 2003-2005 and this year's subprime credit crisis hitting the financial services industry and Wall Street, in particular, so hard.

WASHINGTON - The general consensus among financial experts is that target-date funds are better suited for the majority of 401(k) investors than money market funds. Only problem is, the passive participant seems to have little interest in making changes to their plan, especially if they were automatically enrolled into it.

Until recently, getting a guaranteed income in retirement meant buying an annuity.

The mood at the Investment Company Institute ’s 50th Annual General Membership Meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, themed “Our Foundations, Our Future,” was markedly upbeat. Certainly, this is welcome and refreshing, especially following the dot-com crash of 2000-2001, the mutual fund scandals of 2003-2005 and this year’s subprime credit crisis hitting the financial services industry and Wall Street, in particular, so hard.

No sooner does the mutual fund industry come up with an innovative solution to the retirement income problem than the financial media has to tear it down.

WASHINGTON - Regulators, employers and the financial services industry must work together to expand the use of 401(k) plans and increase worker participation, the Investment Company Institute's President and CEO Paul Schott Stevens said Wednesday at the institute's 50th annual general membership meeting.

The Hartford suffered a serious 83% drop in net income due, the firm announced yesterday, to poor investments.

The Charles Schwab Foundation will sponsor awards for the National Financial Literacy Challenge, a 35-question test of personal finance for high school students in the U.S.

Many investors are gasping at the first-quarter losses on their financial statements and wondering whether they should change their asset allocation to a more conservative plan.

What inspired me to find a tremendous investing opportunity in the Internal Revenue Service's tax code?

The U.S. House of Representatives has gone on federal public record as warning the industry and government legislators that raising long-term capital gains on mutual fund investors any higher than it already is will seriously impair the markets, shareholders, and, eventually, retirees.

Senate Democrats in Connecticut are pushing for a state-sponsored 401(k) retirement plan for small businesses, designed for employers who can’t afford to offer a retirement plan to their workers.

A number of news events in the past week alone indicate without question the U.S. economy is at a dangerous inflection point, but so far, no one-no economist, analyst, fund manager, regulator, legistator, president or CEO-is willing to put together the pieces to talk about something other than snapshot first-quarter, year-over-year or historical trendline data that make a case for the return of the markets.

Russell Investments has launched “LifePoints Funds, Target Distribution Strategies,” a series of multi-manager funds designed specifically for the “decumulation” phase.

Gen Xers are stressed out about the prospect of retirement, with only 31% of them believing they will be able to retire from the workforce.