Consumer

The purchaser of a product or service.

A Changing Variable Annuity Landscape -- The Consumer Perspective

This is the first part of an interview with Ryan Hinchey.

Ryan is a consulting...

Obama Administration Proposes Fiduciary Standards for Brokers

The Obama administration's proposed financial services regulatory overhaul may have a profound impact on the way that investment advice is disseminated in the United States.

The administration's proposal would impose a...

Experts at Stanford Center on Longevity Urge Caution on Consumer Products for Memory Loss

A panel of the world's premier cognitive and brain scientists gathered recently at a summit sponsored by the Stanford Center on Longevity . The group issued a statement for the public regarding "brain enhancing" consumer products such as Gingko biloba that are intended to ward off memory loss. While the panel did acknowledge that cognitive performance among the elderly may be improved relative to years past, they clearly indicated that consumers need to proceed with caution and skepticism when...

Equity-Indexed Annuities Can be a Shell Game for Consumers

The first time I visited New York I was taken in a sidewalk shell-game within 45 minutes of being in the city—no kidding.  Shell games involve trying to guess where a card or any other item might reside after being shuffled among various covers by a dealer.

There are basically three reasons why I lost $40 within 45 minutes of arriving in NYC: 1) I was naïve; 2) I was overconfident in my card-spotting abilities, and; 3) there was a large amount of asymmetric information—in other words, the “dealers” (to use a polite term) had a heck of...

Fixed Annuity Sales Continue to Soar While Massive Inflation Risks are Ignored

Bloomberg reports that there is continued strength in fixed and immediate...

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