retirement planning

It is natural and tempting to assume that the capital market losses that occurred during the recent financial crisis represent a statistical outlier, a perfect storm, a rare, once in a century event—a black swan.

This is not at all the case.

An unsettling and eye-opening table in the current issue of the Financial Analysts Journal is reproduced below.

According to a 2009 article in Sports Illustrated, 78 percent of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress within two years of their retirement, and 60 percent of former NBA players are broke within five years of their retirement.

In a basic sense, information theory measures the level of surprise in a message.

A highly informative message will come as a complete surprise and tell you something about which you had no previous knowledge.

Sounds pretty good, right—of what use is it to be told what you already know?  Well, there are actually cases where information is not so welcome.

I have a huge amount of sympathy for many of the people who are recently retired or close to retirement.

Tim Harrington is the Chairman and CEO of start-up eRollover.

Tim is a seasoned technology and consumer marketing entrepreneur.  Among Tim’s accomplishments is the ecommerce company Fogdog Sports--a venture he led from inception through successful IPO and post-IPO merger.

Walter M. Bortz II, M.D., is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and a graduate of Williams College and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Recognized as one of America’s leading scientific experts on aging and longevity, Dr. Walter Bortz's research has focused on the importance of physical exercise in the promotion of robust aging.

After a tough couple of years for former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, it is time to provide some credit where credit is due.

Chairman Greenspan hit the nail on the head in his recent book The Age of Turbulence.

The following are Greenspan’s comments regarding entitlement spending and the healthcare system:

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal discusses the damage that the financial crisis has rendered to the theoretical foundations of modern finance.

In particular, modern portfolio theory has come under heavy scrutiny over the past couple of years as a result of its non-relevance as a risk management tool during the financial crisis.

In a recent op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal Charles Schwab highlights the fact that the vast majority of retirees in the U.S. are suffering in the current low interest rate environment.

The paltry returns on savings--the average rate on a one year CD is 1.3 percent--are 76 percent lower than even four years ago.

Hedge funds are no longer the exclusive domain of professional and high net worth investors.

A recent Business Week article discusses the emergence of exchange traded funds (ETFs) that are designed to track alternative investment indices.

A start-up investment management company called IndexIQ has launched five of these types of funds over the past eighteen months.