Retirement planning

The SEC and the Department of Labor convened a hearing Thursday to decide whether to tighten the rules for financial services companies that offer target-date funds in their 401(k) plans.

A “perfect storm” of demographic, individual and financial elements is poised to undermine people’s retirement plans unless they prepare properly, warns a new global survey.

Retirees will need far more money to cover their health care expenses than previously estimated, according to a new study.

The recession has not prompted many people to change their behavior and start saving more for retirement, according to a new survey by Charles Schwab.

According to Leon LaBrecque, founder and managing partner of LJPR, LLC, a firm handling more than $300 million in assets, “Engineers who are frozen regarding their finances need to know that the financial planning process, at its core, is identical to the five steps they use for their Engineering Design Process. Once they understand this, they are on their way to building their ideal retirement plan.”

It has been said repeatedly that the one aspect most investors can really count on is that markets are cyclical.

The Treasury Department is advising Social Security check recipients who live in hurricane- and other disaster-prone areas to switch to direct deposit as hurricane season gets underway along the Gulf Coast and Eastern seaboard states and severe weather continues to impact other regions of the country.

The IRS is providing a new withholding adjustment option for pension plans as a way to get around some of the glitches that have developed with the new Making Work Pay tax credit.

ADP has launched ADP Access, a retirement program that combines the benefits of ADP’s 401(k) plan recordkeeping services and the guidance of a financial advisor.

No matter how much money your client has, it’s crucial to have a basic estate plan simply to ensure that the financial goals of the client are met after the client dies.

As the economy worsens and unemployment continues to rise, many people who have stayed invested may be asking themselves if they made a mistake by not selling out and remaining in cash.Conversely, those who have cashed out and have been sitting on the sidelines are patting themselves on the back for a job well done. However, at some point they will need to figure out how and when to get back in the market.

The American College has introduced a video-on-demand Web site that will provide information for financial planners on wealth management and related topics.

If you took an early distribution from your retirement plan, here are the top 10 things you need to know, according to the Internal Revenue Service:

How much, if any, of your Social Security benefits are taxable depends on your total income and marital status.

Retirement doesn’t have to be just about bingo and shuffleboard.

Clients are coming to their CPAs with concerns about their shrinking retirement savings as the recession deepens.

Manny Weintraub is the founder, principal, and portfolio manager of Integre Advisors, based in New York City. He was the former managing director of Neuberger Berman. Integre is a money management firm that was established in 2003 and specializes in risk/reward investing. In fact, their mission is to grow and preserve their clients’ worth. And, they’ve been pretty successful at it for the past five years. But, there has been no question that what is going on now has presented problems. Actually, says Weintraub, “It has been one of the most challenging years investors have ever experienced.” As a result, he has put together what he suggests are 10 resolutions for investors to help them navigate the coming year. They are certainly worth detailing here. 1. Never Put All Your Eggs in One Basket. Weintraub very quickly adds that it doesn’t matter how attractive that basket even is. “This relates to the Madoff case but it could apply equally to anything, such as putting all your pension money into the stock of your employer.” 2. Beware of Conventional Wisdom. He has said that when everyone knows something is going to happen, there’s a decent chance it won’t happen. “When oil was $100, everyone knew that we’re running out of oil and that the price can only go one way – up. It’s the same with China – everyone knew this was the Chinese Century – and that investments related to China would go up. There were all these certainties related to emerging markets that turned out not to be so certain.” 3. Know Your Goal. Weintraub’s admitted goal is to preserve wealth from the ravages of inflation. “If your goal is to outperform the S&P 500 every day, then you might chase things that have worked before but are now overvalued. 4. Match Your attention Span to Your Time Horizon. Weintraub believes that if you are investing money for 10 or 20 years, try not to look at those cable news shows constantly. “To watch these things jiggle up or down, when in the end it doesn’t make a difference, is really a huge waste of time – and a way to get worse results.” 5. Know That We Are Living in History. History is not just something that happened a long time ago. And that’s scary because a lot of scary things have happened in the last 70 years. So you have to be prepared for anything to happen now and in the future. You must have some humility to know that you can’t ever know exactly what’s going to happen, which now brings us to... 6. Avoid Leverage. Anything can happen. The problem with leverage is that it cannot only magnify returns up or down, but leverage is the thing that can say: “game over.” A margin call can sell you out at the worst time whereas, if you’re not leveraged, you can come back some other time. 7. Try to Be as Unemotional as Possible Regarding your Investments. Weintraub says that your stocks don’t “love you” when they’re up or “hate you” when they’re down. They haven’t been “good to you.” “They’re just up. Maybe once a year focus on your investments and ask yourself if you would buy the same thing today, and why. If you don’t have a really good reason, sell.” 8. Paper Losses are Actual Losses. Weintraub points out that alot of people say, “It’s not really a loss unless I sell it.” He retorts, “In that case Warren Buffett isn’t actually a billionaire because he’s a billionaire on paper. One can realize a loss and move on.” 9. Don’t Let Taxes Move Your Portfolio. In other words, don’t let the tail wag the dog. Taxes are important, he says, and if one has the opportunity to buy a triple tax-free bond yielding five percent instead of a corporate bond yielding six percent, go for it. “That’s different from not wanting to sell an investment because you have to pay taxes. A lot of people got completely and totally wiped out by borrowing against their stock instead of selling their stock and paying taxes. They got leveraged and forgot they were living in history. It all ties together.” 10. Wealth is Relative. There you go.If you’re down but not out, you’re in pretty good shape. Even if you’re down 20 percent, you can still buy more yield with the remaining corpus--or more gas, more country house, more modern art, or more expensive clothes--than you could before. If you would like to speak with Manny about Integre, the market, or the stocks in his portfolio, contact Davia Temin, Christine Summerson, or Lauren Balog of Temin and Company at 212.588.8788 or e-mail them at news@teminandco.cominfo@integreadvisors.com.. Or e-mail

Many Americans are planning to delay retirement, postpone vacations and reconsider buying or selling their homes as the result of the economy, according to a new survey by the American Institute of CPAs.

Retirement recordkeeping software developer ExpertPlan has acquired Actuarial Enterprises Inc., a third-party administrator of defined benefit and insurance plans.

Eighty-eight percent of financial advisors now say that their clients are “off-target” for a timely retirement, primarily because of market depreciation, as opposed to 46 percent at the beginning of 2008, according to Brinker Capital, a leading investment management firm, that released the year-end results of its Brinker Capital Retirement Indicator, a gauge of financial advisor sentiment regarding retirement-related issues. In effect, it shows that the clients’ retirement security has been severely jeopardized by ongoing market deterioration. In fact, of the respondents who said they were off-target, some 74 percent claimed it would take between one and five years to make up the retirement savings shortfall. As to the reasons for being so, 97 percent said "market depreciation," 51 percent noted "didn't start saving soon enough," and 47% percent said "general procrastination." Brinker says that the question which provoked the most vigorous response was: "Are you seeing a disconnect between your clients' responses on their risk tolerance questionnaires and the level of risk they are willing to take today?" Some 75 percent of financial advisors weighed in with a resounding "yes." When asked if they think there should be a reassessment of the way clients' risk tolerance is measured, 76 percent also said "yes." Of course, going a little bit further down the road, when asked to comment on whether the government should mandate employee and employer participation in 401(k)s, 74 percent of advisors said "no." Moreover, a decisive 92 percent of advisors said "government should stay out of the management of 401(k)s." Clearly, these are rather strong responses. In addition, consider others such as: