Retirement

Putnam Investments CEO Robert Reynolds spoke about the notion of "lifetime financial product allocation" at a recent industry conference. Reynolds supports the notion of a range of products over the course of one's lifetime that include: Lifetime income options to hedge against longevity risk . Relative return strategies to hedge inflation risk . Absolute return strategies to deal with both inflation and volatility risk ( sequence of returns risk ). Reynolds offered comments on the over-...

AXA and ING are in the process of launching a new generation of retirement products. Money Management reports that the two companies are developing a new line of retirement income products that provide more flexibility than traditional annuities. The products, which include AXA's "North" product line, are essentially traditional investments with an underlying safety net that is created through a hedging program. "Unlike old-style annuities, the client can withdraw from the product at any time (...

Boston University economist Zvi Bodie is as candid as ever in a recent interview published in Money Magazine. Bodie believes that the vast majority of consumers have been deceived by conventional financial advice: The standard models that are used to give investment advice to millions of Americans are fundamentally wrong. We're told that over time, stocks get less risky, but that's bull. Stocks are always risky -- whether in the short or long run. Prices dropped by 37% last year. While...

Putnam, a large Boston-based money manager with $110 billion in assets, plans to move from 10 to 50 percent of the assets currently in its target date mutual funds into four different absolute return funds. The move serves as a confirmation of the hazards that sequence of returns risk presents to near retirees and those who are recently retired. As recently reported by Bloomberg, target date funds have come under increasing regulatory scrutiny as funds that are intended to serve investors...