Annuity News

Low Interest Rates Provide a Favorable Environment for Wealth Transfer and Estate Planning

In a recent article, Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig discusses estate tax planning strategies that are especially attractive given the current low interest rate environment. Zweig discusses the ability of parents to loan money to children for nine years at a fixed IRS determined interest rate (currently 2.63 percent).

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Hedge Funds for the Masses

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.

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Asset Liability Management for Personal Finance

A recent article the Journal of Portfolio Management argues that asset liability management is highly relevant and applicable to the field of personal finance, while traditional methods such as mean-variance optimization are not appropriate for private investors. Asset-liability management is a portfolio management technique that attempts to match the nature of duration of the assets and liabilities in the portfolio. For example, defined benefit pension fund managers or insurance company...

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The Potential Impact of a Dollar Crisis

A recent Business Week article discusses the possibility of a crash in the U.S. dollar and what the fallout of a dollar crisis might entail. The author, Peter Coy, asserts that most economists and investors are discounting the possibility o f a crash in the U.S. dollar.

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John Bogle on the Restoration of the Fiduciary Principle

Vanguard Founder John Bogle continues to write about the need to restore the notion of fiduciary duty in American business. Writing in the Journal of Portfolio Management, Bogle attributes the financial crisis to the declining standards in fiduciary duty and overall business ethics.

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Test news item

testing income and capital market . Do not forget about insurance . Allianz . Swiss Re financial capital

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Bonds Top Stocks Over 30 Years for First Time in More than a Century

Long-term U.S. government bonds have had an average gain of 11.5 percent per year over the past 30 years. The average annual return on the S&P 500 over the same period is 10.8 percent. The last time that bonds trumped equity market returns over the course of three decades was before the Civil War. The question on many investors' minds now is whether this great 30 year bull market in bonds has finally run its course. <a href="http://storify.com/tcochrane/bonds-beat-stocks" mce_href="...

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Congress is Considering Annuities to Help Retirees Address Longevity Risk

Through the Senate Special Committee on Aging, U.S. lawmakers and regulators have been conducting hearings focused on retirement security issues. The hearings are a follow-up to a recent request for comment on the same topic from the U.S. Labor and Treasury Departments.

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Government Workers as the Fastest Growing Group of Millionaires

Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard wrote an interesting and entertaining piece in his blog. Karlgaard discusses the growing disparity beteen the incomes of public sector or "government" workers versus their private sector counterparts. Many would assume that private sector employees are on the advantageous side of this disparity. This is not, however, the case.

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Prudential Annuity Sales and Profit Surge

Prudential Financial announced first quarter earnings results that blew past estimates. Net income was $536 million compared to a loss of $5 million in the same period a year ago. Net variable annuity sales were very strong with revenue totaling $3.2 billion for the quarter--a significant increase from $665 million a year ago.

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