Retirement scan

A Yale Law School professor proposes raising the full retirement age to 76 and imposing a steep 80% penalty for the highest earners who opt to claim their benefits early.

Target-date funds can be a strong option for most retirement savers, but there are pitfalls. Some of them are relatively costly, with an average expense of about 1%. They can also get too conservative too quickly.

Tell clients in this situation to make sure they know key dates and review their statements to confirm the amounts are accurate.

Investments in certain closed-end funds or preferred shares are strategies clients should consider to make their savings last, an industry expert says.

Near retirees can mitigate the impact of inflation by shortening the duration of bond portfolios so that re-investment at higher rates can be done in the future.

Those with the option of taking loans from their plans should consider tax implications and the possibility of missing out on the growth of the money that was borrowed.

An analysis shows low-income clients get more back from the benefit program than the payroll taxes they paid, while high-earning workers get less.

Retirement investors should learn how to balance the different risks to their portfolio instead of avoiding them altogether.

Such a portfolio outperformed the S&P 500 in an analysis covering 1928 to 2015.

The new rule will lead to lower built-in commissions, enhanced agent/advisor education, and increased regulation of indexed annuities.