Another company is settling fraud charges from regulators amid a widespread crackdown on precious metals dealers that target retirees. The firm, Safeguard Metals, along with its sole owner, Jeffrey Ikahn, allegedly defrauded customers to whom it marketed gold IRAs of $68 million, according to two separate lawsuits brought by the...
Led by record demand for registered index-linked annuities, total third-quarter annuity sales rose 11% year over year to $89.4 billion, according to preliminary results from Limra’s U.S. Individual Annuity Sales Survey. Limra said RILA sales hit a new record in the third quarter of $12.6 billion, up 19% from the...
Rudy Adolf, founder and CEO of Focus Financial Partners, will be retiring at the end of the year, the firm announced Monday. Adolf will be succeeded immediately by the chairman of the company’s board, Dan Glaser, who has been appointed interim CEO. Glaser is also an operating partner at...
As the last quarter of 2023 begins, clients will likely be asking advisors whether they’re subject to required minimum distributions. That used to be an easy question to answer both for individual retirement account owners and beneficiaries. However, as a result of the confluence of changes made by the...
It’s been nearly a decade since BlackRock closed a line of iShares target-date ETFs for which it had high hopes. At the time, the products, like other ETFs, had struggled to win a place in 401(k) plans. They attracted $310 million — an extremely modest figure for the world’s largest...
The concept of retirement is changing, and many people preparing for it are realizing that they can’t fully quit their working lives as soon as they’d like. The reality is working longer or taking a gradual retirement, where part-time jobs help bridge financial gaps. The average age at which people in...
To paraphrase a line from “Hamlet”: To itemize or to take the standard deduction? That is the question. Okay, maybe it’s not exactly Shakespeare, but it is a question frequently posed by clients to their financial advisors. A greatest hit, right up there with: “When should I take my required...
The system that millions of Americans rely on for their retirement income is only slightly above average and may require reform. That’s according to the Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index which looks at 47 of the world’s retirement income systems to identify weaknesses and suggest ways to make them...
Gen Z and Millennials are used to the ‘on demand’ culture of today’s America, and they would rather not wait for retirement either. These young Americans would like to retire when they are 50 and are willing to sacrifice some pleasures today for the tomorrow they want, according to a...
SoFi is copying Robinhood’s play for retirement assets by offering owners of individual retirement accounts a 1% contribution match to win their business. The financial services company announced that perk Thursday, noting that the match applies to all new IRA contributions to SoFi Invest from outside accounts and those made...