Americans in their fifties have lost much of the equity value in their homes, as well as in their saving and investment accounts, due to the severe economic downturns endured over the past decade.

Retirement planning is now more difficult than ever for this generation, causing many to contemplate moving overseas where the cost of living is not nearly as high, as it is in the states. There is also a subset of retirees that want to return to their homeland, necessitating a major relocation move, in any event.

Advisor Perspectives just published the first in a series of articles from Wade Pfau. These pieces are important and should be read by anyone considering guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefits or any of the other optional guaranteed living benefit features that accompany variable annuities.

Duration is a measure of the time associated with cash flows or payments from a bond. Duration measures the amount of time (in years from the purchase date) required for a bond owner to receive interest and principal payments that are equal to the cost of the bond.

Long duration bonds have payments that are spread-out over a relatively long period of time (e.g. 10-20 years). Shorter duration bonds have payments that might span over five years or less.

The CFA Institute just held its 2012 fixed income conference in San Francisco.

Speakers shared a very broad range of perspectives on fixed income issues over the course of about a dozen sessions.

Session notes and observations (in no particular order) include:

Demographics and Deleveraging -- Rick Rieder, Blackrock

Conventional financial wisdom says that bonds should comprise an increasing percentage of a portfolio as the owner ages and heads into retirement.

In theory, a retiree’s need for income and a reduced tolerance for risk are the main drivers of the larger allocation to bonds.

A key consideration, though, is whether bonds are the best or “optimal” way to address lifetime income needs and the reduced appetite for volatility.

New retirement income research from Morningstar provides a framework for quantifying the value of effective financial planning for retirement.

Morningstar’s retirement research team uses the concept of “Gamma” to refer to the extra retirement income that can be attributed to better financial planning and decisions.

Inflation protection for fixed annuities would seem to be a sensible consideration given the fact that central banks around the world are doing everything they can to reflate in the wake of an historic deleveraging.

After all, the worst possible place to be if and when inflation does kick-in is on the receiving end of nominal (not adjusted for inflation) fixed payments, and most fixed annuities fit this description perfectly.

While the inflation protection makes sense in theory, it turns-out that inflation-protected annuities may not be so sensible in practice.

Retirement researcher Wade Pfau published a research paper titled “An Efficient Frontier for Retirement Income.”

Pfau’s paper analyzes the relative merits of equities, bonds, fixed single premium immediate annuities (SPIA), inflation-adjusted SPIAs and variable annuities with guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefits (GLWB).

Each of these allocation options are examined in the context of achieving retirement spending goals.

Pfau creates an efficient frontier for a hypothetical 65 year old couple requiring a 4 percent withdrawal rate.

The U.S. longevity insurance market has been developing for almost a decade, and yet there are still only a handful of insurance companies providing retail longevity annuities.

This is somewhat surprising given demographics, longevity trends, capital market conditions and recent regulatory guidance that should provide a boost to longevity annuities.

The concept is seductive: a financial product that provides upside exposure in the event that equity markets trend up and to the right while also providing a floor of protection in case the bottom falls-out from under markets again.

Sort of like having your cake and eating it too. Very tempting in light of the massive financial uncertainty that has existed for the past several years.