A Ballet of Black Swans Investors over 40 have now experienced several so-called black swan events in the last 20 years. These are those “once every 100 years” financial haymakers that drop our investments to the mat with fearsome efficiency. It is remarkable that Gen-Xers had their 401(k)s and IRAs staggered by not one but...Continue Reading
Three things to know before buying one Relatively new to the market, Index-Linked Annuities (“ILAs”) are a bit misunderstood. (For an example of an ILA, look at the Allianz Index Advantage ADV ILA). Like their cousins, fixed indexed annuities, ILAs offer upside potential with downside protection. Both provide market participation via index-following crediting methods, and...Continue Reading
Writing for Kiplinger, RetireOne CEO David Stone says recessions are a normal part of the economic cycle. He argues that during these market cycles, equities prices are ‘pruned’ back to allow for healthy future growth. Stocks are approaching historical highs anyway. A recession now could make future investments cheaper, which would be good in the...Continue Reading
RetireOne President Ed Mercier has been working in the RIA space for 20 years. In an article for Advisor Perspectives, Ed shares similarities between his experience serving this audience of fiduciaries, and that of his colleague, Jim Combs. Jim is CEO of National Advisors Trust (NATC). NATC is one of the largest trust companies in...Continue Reading
In this article for IRIS, RetireOne President Ed Mercier explores the trend toward zero commission or ‘no-load’ insurance products like annuities. As robos take on more and more advisor services, many experts agree that financial behavioral coaching is one area that resists automation. This new generation of low-cost, fiduciary-focused products help RIAs manage client behaviors...Continue Reading
Annuities have a terrible reputation. Rather than incorporating them into retirement plans to solve specific problems for investors, some salespeople overstated their features and benefits—selling them as ‘strategies’ rather than tactics. Writing in ThinkAdvisor, RetireOne CEO David Stone says this semantic difference is important. These are complex instruments that help investors achieve important goals, but...Continue Reading
Midterms, oil prices, trade wars, conflict in Ukraine, and other instability made markets choppy in the fourth quarter. Research from Bespoke shows that the last three recessions (1990, 2001, 2007) followed the inversion of 3-year and 5-year treasuries by an average of 26 months. We just passed that yield curve inversion milestone. Folks may be...Continue Reading
William Bengen’s 4% rule is approaching its 25th birthday. In the nearly three decades since his discovery of the safe withdrawal rate, much has happened. We’ve navigated the tech boom, and the housing bubble of the last decade, and are now riding a ten-year bull to new highs. Until last week!? A recent survey from...Continue Reading
Writing for Kiplinger.com, RetireOne® CEO David Stone addresses some old myth-making about variable annuities. As sure as the sun rises and sets, variable annuities will draw negative attention from some advisors and finance journalists. And typically, their criticisms are spot on. But those criticisms often pertain to older products sold for commission. VAs are evolving....Continue Reading
Experts have been weighing in on the slow adoption of no-load annuities and insurance-based solutions by RIAs. Certainly, a lack of non-commission products has been one of the culprits, but as more and more fee-based products come to market, why is adoption still low? Michael Kitces, recently quoted in a Ben Mattlin article in Financial...Continue Reading
