Retirement

From fees to severe penalties for missteps, a self-directed retirement account is something most savers should steer clear of.

Blindly following the decades-old industry guideline is dangerous; tapping into 401(k)s if needed while delaying Social Security is smart.

The move brings wealth building and retirement planning advice to a large, underserved population of new clients.

There is no single path to retirement today, and employees are demanding more variety from company offerings.

The billionaire put into his account pre-IPO shares of Paypal, Facebook and Palantir valued at just $0.001, which then exploded in value.

Employees will receive personalized insights, guidance and tools to build a financially secure retirement.

The vision is to democratize “high-quality, personalized advice at scale, just as the independent advisor has disrupted wealth management,” the companies said in a statement.

The oldest borrowers hold the fastest-growing piece of the U.S.’s $1.7 trillion student-loan pile.

“It will dramatically expand the number of advisors who will be fiduciaries under ERISA,” says one expert.

Many White Americans are retiring because they can afford to, while Black Americans are forced to stop working by health problems or a disability.

About 76% of the average account was in stocks across the 4.7 million participants in plans that Vanguard keeps records for.

With the burden on participants to figure it all out, it's no surprise that more often than not, they just give up, Alexis Leondis writes.

“Financial wellness is front and center [for employers], so the partnership between Betterment and Lumity made perfect sense,” says Amit Ahluwalia, Lumity’s national employee benefits practice leader.

Make female executives and heiresses feel dumb about personal finance and they’ll take their portfolios elsewhere.

Retiring before the full retirement age can result in a cut in Social Security benefits by as much as 30%, research shows.

While after-tax funds in employer-sponsored plans are tracked by plan administrators, clients are on their own with traditional IRAs, Jeffrey Levine writes.

"Many times it’s actually small, systematic behavioral changes in strategies that lead to sustainable, meaningful changes in outcomes," writes Michael Liersch.

Almost nine in 10 estate planners say women clients either lost their jobs, had their salaries cut or left the workforce during the pandemic, a study shows.

When the millions left unemployed due to COVID-19 return to work, research suggests they will cash out of their former employers’ plans, Spencer Williams writes.