Retirement

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.

With news that the economy might be on the mend and that roughly two-thirds of employers are considering reinstating 401(k) matches in the next 18 months, it is not inconceivable that a new 401(k)/pension hybrid that becomes available to employers on Jan. 1, 2010 could gain traction, Kiplinger’s reports.

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance said 401(k) participants continued to move more of their savings and contributions back into the stock market in the second quarter, evidence of growing confidence in investing.

After almost a year in federal receivership, in which chunks of the giant corporation have been sold off, American International Group (AIG) has ended negotiations to sell its Advisor Group of independent broker/dealers. The group had been on the market for roughly 10 months.

Employers are paying closer attention to the offerings in their 401(k) plans, with an eye toward helping workers better prepare for retirement, according to a report from Deloitte Consulting, the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and the International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists.

Jackson National Life reported a record $3.4 billion in retail sales and deposits in the second quarter. In the first half of the year, sales and deposits totaled $6.1 billion, up 3% from the first half of 2008.

The average 401(k) account balance rose 13.5% in the second quarter to $53,900, which was perhaps behind the trend for more investors to increase their deferral savings rate than to decrease it, Fidelity Investments reports.

Employers are paying closer attention to the offerings in their 401(k) plans, with an eye toward helping workers better prepare for retirement, according to a report from Deloitte Consulting, the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and the International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists.

Young investors may not have much, if anything, to lose in the stock market, but seeing their parents and grandparents suffer from the market declines following the dot-com crash and then the credit crisis over the past 10 years has taken a severe toll on their risk appetite, The Denver Post reports.

The average 401(k) balance is back at the level it was in 2004, according to a report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute—essentially wiping out the past five years of investing.

The average return of U.S. equity mutual funds in the second quarter, a stunning 19.77%, was certainly welcome news, but it gave investors absolutely no reason to believe the stock market was turning around. After all, what fundamentals were there?