401(k) fees and disclosure, fiduciary rules, mutual funds, Social Security, retirement planning.
171 articles · page 3 of 9
What happens when one of the nation’s largest financial services firms victimizes its employees? Simple. It produces one of the fastest financial settlements in court history. In the case of Krystal M. Anderson and All Others vs. Principal Life Insurance Company, a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Southern…
As the stock market gains, so does the retirement crisis. The latest evidence comes from a new study from CareerBuilder and Harris polls, which shows that almost 8 out of 10 American workers live paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet. This is an increase of 5% to 78% in 2017. (The Harris Poll surveyed…
The nation’s biggest banks cannot help preying on their customers, large and small. The latest case involves the esoteric world of securities lending, which is used for short selling and hedge funds and is an essential means of eliminating “failed” transactions. In exchange, the lender (such as a brokerage firm) charges a stock loan…
It is widely recognized in the modern world that the earth revolves around the sun. Now, it is time for more investors to understand that the fees charged to manage your mutual funds in a 401(k) and elsewhere all reduce your net investment returns. There is a direct connection: the more you pay in fees…
Good workers in a corporate society are commonly expected to bracket their personal biases and emotions when they enter the workplace. While this may be changing as more corporations adopt a “work-life balance” position, most people in the retirement planning industry, including writers who regularly cover this topic, have a right…
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, concerned elected officials cared about the retirement needs of their many millions of citizens. But those days are over. Today, retirement security continues to be an elusive goal for millions who will likely never be able to retire and enjoy the quality-of-life comfort level…
First they came for your healthcare. Next, they are coming for your pensions. Yes, it looks like the $3 trillion healthcare industry, as well as pensions in the U.S. are going to go through a major transformation. And, while the final form of the health care is yet to be decided, it’s clear…
The current commentary explosion on social media of Chicago airport security guards forcibly pulling a man off a United Airlines plane is deeply disturbing because everyone who has flown can relate to some degree of passenger mistreatment. Of course, three men have not pulled us from our seats in a closed container. Still, the…
One neighbor to the north has come up with a way to over-fund their state pension system, so why can’t it be repeated here? Bucking the industry trend, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan announced it was 105% funded as of Jan. 1, 2017, its fourth consecutive year of being fully funded. The fund…
If you thought planning for retirement was difficult, it got a lot harder. That’s because saving for retirement must now account for two significant life changes: you are living longer, and you won’t make much on your investments. Living longer is considered a good thing since science and medicine can do wonders. However, the…
The $1.3 trillion Target Date Fund market is not all it’s cracked up to be. That should come as a big surprise to millions of people who own these funds through their employers’ 401(k) plans, as well as others who were sold a simple, easy-to-understand, hands-off investment product that would allegedly take care of…
Unsurprisingly, the Trump Administration has declared war on individual investors, making it more difficult for millions of Americans to have a financially secure retirement. For millions, there may be no retirement, or certainly, there may be one with a lower quality of life than when people were working. However, to hasten this downward spiral,…
An earlier post on this site pointed out that the retirement crisis in America is not getting any attention. But just because it is not getting noticed does not mean the crisis will disappear. On the contrary, it will only worsen, aggravated by the nation’s wealth gap and attempts to alter Social Security and Medicare…
Even in the best of times, retirement planning is never an easy or fun task. Now, this task is being made more difficult because the Trump Administration and top Republicans are considering plans to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, reducing benefits, adjusting tax brackets and deductions, raising the retirement age, cutting financial regulations…
When a federal court judge ruled on Feb. 8, 2017, that the U.S. Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule must still stand despite furious protests from the financial services lobby, it did not mean individual investors would automatically be protected from errant financial rep who continue to sell products that are not in the best…
What does $17 billion mean to you? If you are an American investor, you should take note since this is your money. Suppose you are in the financial services industry. In that case, you should take note because it is the money you get from fees, expenses, and rebates that unsuspecting investors pay you…
When the Trump administration was in power, they moved to revoke protections for individual investors. This was no surprise. An announcement that the Trump administration was moving to revoke safeguards meant individual investors would have more trouble saving for retirement and making higher-return investments. That announcement culminated from hundreds of millions of dollars spent…
It seems the more it changes, the more it’s the same. Conflicts-of-interest and charging excessive fees seem to be part of the DNA of major banks (such as Deutschbank and its $10 billion money laundering scheme out of Russia and Wells Fargo), insurance companies and investment firms when it comes to selling investment products…
Despite its claims to be for “all Americans,” the Trump Administration is moving fast to repeal the historic pro-investor fiduciary ruling that let’s 401(k) investors know the fees, expenses and conflicts-of-interest their financial advisor and 401(k) providers are receiving when selling them mutual funds and annuities for their retirement accounts. The anti-individual investor…
Two of the cherished gems of the investment and retirement industries are being criticized as failing and this means more bad news for Americans planning for retirement. The first gem to be tarnished was shown in an eye-opening research report from the Economic Policy Institute about the failure of 401(k)s and IRAs to meet…
