Week of June 24, 2019
1. THE HOME STRETCH – The S&P 500 has closed at its calendar year high in the second half of the year (i.e., during the 6 months of July-December) 74% of the time since 1950. In 17 of the last 30 years, the index’s calendar year high has occurred during the month of December. The...Read More
What kind of risks do you need to take when it comes to planning retirement income?
Recent research from the Deloitte Center for Financial Services focused on retirement preparedness, showing a number of practical barriers that were either preventing or discouraging people from saving for long-term needs. Such barriers often included conflicts of financial priorities, lack of trust to financial service providers, and poor understanding of the products serving the market....Read More
Senators Intend to Create a Federal Retirement Commission
As reported by the National Tax Deferred Savings Association, bipartisan legislation is creating a new federal commission that’s going to deal with studying and the recommendation of ways to improve Americans’ retirement security policies. The Federal Retirement Commission Act submitted on May 14 required the commission to review private retirement benefit programs (except for...Read More
Week of June 17, 2019
#6. – The 18-month recession that the United States experienced between December 2007 and June 2009 wiped out more than $7 trillion of real estate assets and stock portfolios. At the low point, the collective net worth of Americans fell to $50.4 trillion as of 3/31/09. 10 years later, the balance sheets of Americans have gained...Read More
What will new stipulations for CFPs mean for fiduciaries?
With all of the ongoing regulation by the SEC and DOL, it’s about time more parties join the ring. As reported recently by InvestmentNews, the CFP board will now be entering the fray. Now that we know that the SEC rule is not going to enforce a fiduciary standard onto brokers, the chief executive of...Read More
HOW FACEBOOK EXPLOITS YOU & WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOUR PORTFOLIO
Facebook is a company everyone loves to hate. But few people realize that Facebook’s scandals are almost completely predetermined by the nature of a platform business in a time of essentially free corporate credit. Add to that lax antitrust oversight and we have a recipe for disaster. Yon Perullo, CFA, FRM and Daniel Satchkov, CFA...Read More
House Passes the SECURE Act
On May 23, 2019, the House of Representatives passed the Secure Act, a bill backed by both Republicans and Democrats that aims to improve the nation’s retirement system. If it passes the Senate, it will be sent to President Trump’s desk. People familiar with the process agree that the bill will be signed by the...Read More
Robo vs. Advisor
In the past few years, robo-advisory platforms gained a lot of traction in the world of financial planning. The first robo-advisory firms were launched in 2008 during the financial crisis with new company Betterment in the vanguard of the new trend. The robo-advisors became a new class of financial advisors who provided financial...Read More
Case Study: Searching By Service Providers
Targeting a plan’s record keeper or current advisor is one of the most commonly asked about features for our Larkspur Executive. Do we know who their current advisor is? Their plan administrator? The answer to these questions is: yes, we do know for many plans
Are investors moving away from active target date funds into their passive counterparts?
InvestmentNews recently reported that actively managed target date funds are quickly losing market share to their passive counterparts. Currently active target date funds hold $570 billion while passive hold $480 billion in assets across the entire market. Over the past few years nearly all new incoming investments into the target date category have all gone...Read More