Retirement planning

After last month's Retirement Advisor Confidence Index suggested advisors were keeping allocations steady despite an increase in client risk tolerance, a Twitter user responded.

Seeing people come up short with the money needed for a retirement home was sad for one administrative assistant. In her new career she helps such people and produces more than $1 million a year doing it.

As lifespans lengthen and the housing market rebounds, some advisors are reconsidering real estate as a long-term investment for their older clients.

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who oversees $150 billion in pension assets, called for expanding a ban on agents who solicit investments for the city’s five pension funds.

North Carolina’s Janet Cowell has some unusual qualities for a state treasurer: For one thing, she can say “running dog of a capitalist” in Mandarin. She’s also poised to voluntarily surrender her status as one of four officials nationwide with sole control over state pension investments.

Detroit’s pensions would get more than twice what creditors who loaned the city money for those funds would receive under a proposal to restructure its $18 billion of debt.

Mainstay Capital Management specializes in helping auto industry employees manage their retirement accounts.

President Barack Obama’s new retirement accounts lack the most popular features of 401(k) plans. They offer no matching contributions, no prospect for eye-popping returns and no track record of employer support.

At the group's national conference in Orlando, president Tom Nally announces several new initiatives aimed at helping advisors expand their businesses.

President Obama's announcement of a new retirement plan for low- to middle-income Americans drew reactions ranging from hopeful praise to scorn from advisors who say many big questions remain to be answered.

President Obama's proposal for encouraging low-income Americans to set money aside in accounts with tax advantages is a limited step that may help bolster retirement savings.

As waves of baby boomers head into retirement, state and federal regulators expect to take a hard look at the programs firms have in place to ensure they are selling elderly investors appropriate financial instruments.

Most advisors make housing choices in their own lives, but fail to aid clients facing the issue, according to a Legg Mason survey of 506 advisors.

President Obama's inclusion of retirement security in Tuesday night's State of the Union Address was mostly welcomed by the benefits community, but left some disappointed by a perceived "attack" on the 401(k).

A number of advisors took to Twitter to discuss the "MyRA" accounts unveiled by Obama in his State of the Union Address on Tuesday.

When congressmen introduce bills that work at cross-purposes with the intent of Social Security, it's no wonder clients are confused too.

As tens of millions of baby boomers enter their golden years, Bank of America Merrill Lynch has appointed its first gerontologist to help advisors address clients' age-related concerns.

Western Asset Management, a unit of Legg Mason, will pay more than $21 million to settle charges of defrauding clients, the SEC said.

Clients often worry about the IOUs in the trust fund, which, while literally true, is unnecessarily alarmist. In the investment world, we call them bonds and they're not so scary.