The historically low interest rate environment that kicked into high gear after the Great Financial Crisis began fourteen years ago compelled an array of annuity products today that are dizzying in scope. And that has created a paradox of choice for consumers and those who advise them. The existential threat that low rates created for annuity manufacturers compelled a wave of innovation like never before, and we are now drowning in a sea of product choices that often blur the lines of value proposition. To wit, we now have not just indexed annuities with simple indexes; we have custom volatil ..read more

You'll have a hard time coming up with anything resembling pity when you consider a risk faced by many affluent American's regarding their retirement prospects. But couple the amount of their income they'll need to replace from their own resources with uncertain markets, and you have a recipe for high anxiety for many. Consider the case of a person who is say age 57 today and ten years from being able to receive Social Security at the full benefit amount. Let's say our affluent pre-retiree has a healthy income of $300,000 a year, and she is a married breadwinner. She has no pension waiting for ..read more

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Whether you are in middle management or the C Suite, one area where economic equity seems to be alive and well is with respect to social security retirement benefits. For example, consider the income patterns of two different workers who started work on the same day and are the same age. Worker A took the fast track to the corner office route right out of business school, and through hard work and many long hours built a high paying career as she rose to the position of Executive Vice President after 40 years. The other worker - worker B - has also had a satisfying and rewarding career but too ..read more

In June of 2021, my corporate life ended after an uninterrupted 35-year run. It was a varied and exciting career that took my family from my native Hartford area to Houston to Seattle and back to Houston. I worked for terrific companies and with great people in an industry with a perennially noble mission: providing financial security and preserving dignity in the face of always uncertain life events and always uncertain capital markets. The end of my corporate career was, in retrospect, the best thing that could ever have happened to me, as it finally prompted me to pursue my decade long desi ..read more

Meta Platforms (otherwise known as Facebook) laid an egg yesterday with disappointed quarterly results, joining the likes of Netflix as two of the mighty FAANG quintet have fallen from their once seemingly ironclad perches. FB is on track to open today almost $200 billion smaller in market capitalization..an almost 25% decline from already lower levels compared to 2021 - while Netflix was cut in half in a mere 2 calendar months, with NFLX shares dropping from an all time high of $700 per in mid-November to 350 about a week ago after their own disappointing earnings release. The problem with F ..read more

If you thought January 2009 was bad, when the S&P 500 fell 8.6%, this January is worse yet. If it holds, it will be the worst January on record for large stocks. Small caps have had it worse going back to last year, and briefly hit bear market territory this week, having hit their peak in November. But for those willing to hold their nose and give them a go, small caps provide intriguing relative values and diversification to a portfolio. According to a Bank of America analyst in a recent article, the relative forward PE of the Russell 2000 compared to the Russell 1000 currently stands at ..read more

With the Russell 2000 firmly in bear market territory, and the NASDAQ heading there quickly it appears, the price of entry for new money into equities has been drastically reduced, in rapid fashion. Unfortunately, as usually happens, there is also a buyers strike as the market tries to find its footing at lower levels. This has been an unusually rocky week in the markets, which are experiencing lots of turbulence, starting back in November with a more hawkish Fed than many had expected. Throw in the perception of a weak Netflix Q4 report released yesterday, and Peleton's continuing woes (separ ..read more

When waxing poetic about the positive attributes of annuities with guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefits, too often we are fixated on the quality of the cashflow when using those benefits. Meaning, perhaps we are paying too much attention to the fact that the income is guaranteed for a life or lives, and less focused on the quantity of that income. But the fact is, both are important. The guaranteed nature allows annuity owners to plan future income with a degree of precision and efficiency uncommon with nonguaranteed approaches. But the quantity or the scale of that income is often underapp ..read more

RILA's have come a long way since AXA rolled out Structured Capital Strategies a decade ago. Initially conceived as a tweener product to generate returns somewhere between a fixed indexed annuity and an equity product while provide some degree of downside protection, today's most innovative products have potentially made the efficient frontier more efficient. With uncapped participation rates that exceed 100% in many products today, there exists the potential for RILAs to now produce the same or better upside performance as an equivalent ETF, despite the lack of dividend participation. The gra ..read more