Annuity News

The Wall Street Journal reports that sales of indexed certificates of deposit ( Indexed CD ) have increased 46% during the first five months of 2009. Industry sales of indexed CDs for the 5 month period were $1.66 billion. This compares to $1.15 billion for the same period the previous year. There are several critical differences between indexed CDs or market-indexed CDs and a plain vanilla CD: Indexed CDs are linked to an index such as the S&P 500. If the index performs well, the owner...

The Wall Street Journal reports that customers are moving towards independent registered investment advisors (RIA) and away from Wall Street brokerage firms. RIAs brought in $108 billion in new assets in 2008 while brokerage firms lost $8 billion. The change is seen in large part as a migration towards more objective financial advice. A registered investment advisor acts as a fiduciary , offers an advisory account , and is free of many of the potential conflicts of interest that are inherent in...

The wealth of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke decreased to $850,000 - $1.9 million at the end of 2008 from the $1.2 million - $2.5 million range in 2007. The financial crisis took a toll on most of chairman Bernanke's asset holdings. Particularly hard hit, though, was the variable annuity that is owned by chairman Bernanke: "Much of Mr. Bernanke's decline came from a large-cap stock variable annuity he holds, whose value dropped from between $500,000 and $1 million at the end of 2007 to...

The SEC put a stop to a $50 million real estate focused Ponzi scheme that targeted elderly investors in the Detroit area. John Bravata and Richard Trabulsy apparently lured more than 400 elderly investors with the promise of safe 8% - 12% returns. Many of the investors were solicited with " free lunch " seminars. The reality of the situation, however, was very different than what was promised: The men “lied” to prospective investors about the use of funds and spent $7.2 million...