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6 Ways to Evaluate Your Target-Date Fund
Tweet Share on Facebook February 28, 2011 CommentMany employees who are automatically enrolled in their workplace 401(k) plan will have their money invested in a target-date fund, the most popular default investment. Target-date funds allocate your retirement savings into a range of investments including equities, bonds, and cash and gradually shift the investment mix to become more conservative over time. However, a Government Accountability Office report released last week found that target-date funds are not the ideal investment vehicle for everyone. Here are some key ways to evaluate your target-date fund.
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Average 401(k) Balance Finally Tops 2007 High
Tweet Share on Facebook February 25, 2011 CommentIt’s taken three years, but the average 401(k) finally contains the same amount that it did in 2007. The average Fidelity 401(k) held $69,200 in 2007. Then the average account balance plunged to $50,200 in 2008, due to market declines. By the end of 2009, average balances climbed to $64,200. But it took until 2010 for retirement savers to regain the 401(k) balances they had in 2007. The average 401(k) account balance was $71,500 at the end of 2010.
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7 Reasons Americans Can’t Save for Retirement
Tweet Share on Facebook February 23, 2011 Comment (7)Americans are increasingly making an effort to save for retirement, but they’re finding it difficult to build a significant nest egg. “There are indications that many Americans are trying to meet the challenge of saving for their future,” says Dallas Salisbury, president of the Employee Benefit Research Institute. However, less than half (47 percent) of current workers say they are saving enough to have a desirable standard of living in retirement, according to a new America Saves and American Savings Education Council survey conducted by Opinion Research Corp. Here’s a look at why most workers aren’t on track to retire comfortably.
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A Surge of Year-End Roth IRA Conversions
Tweet Share on Facebook February 18, 2011 Comment (2)Large numbers of retirement savers converted their traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs just in time for the year-end tax deadline. Fidelity Investments reports that 220,000 Roth IRA conversions were completed at the firm in 2010, more than a fourfold increase over 2009. And nearly a third of those conversions were executed in December 2010.
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Older Worker Employment Reaches Record High
Tweet Share on Facebook February 17, 2011 Comment (2)The proportion of individuals who continue to work after age 55 reached a record high this year. Some 40.2 percent of Americans age 55 and older participated in the labor force in 2010, a number than has increased steadily since 1993 when just 29.4 percent of older Americans worked, according to an Employee Benefit Research Institute analysis of Census Bureau data.
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4 Cautionary Tales for Retirees
Tweet Share on Facebook February 16, 2011 Comment (1)Saving up enough money to retire comfortably shouldn’t be your only retirement goal. You also need a plan to invest that money to make sure it lasts the rest of your life. Simply withdrawing 4 percent of your portfolio adjusted for inflation each year doesn’t guarantee that your money will last 30 years if it is invested in the stock market. You may need to adjust your withdrawal strategy throughout your retirement depending on how the market performs.
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5 Ways Obama’s Budget Will Impact Retirees
Tweet Share on Facebook February 14, 2011 Comment (4)President Obama released his fiscal year 2012 budget today. The proposals allocate more resources to Social Security and streamline the process for employers to create new retirement plans, but also cut funding to a job retraining program for senior citizens. Here are some of the provisions most likely to impact retirement savers.
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How Much Do You Need for a Comfortable Retirement?
Tweet Share on Facebook February 11, 2011 Comment (9)Most people think they need to earn slightly more money than their current paychecks contain in order to feel comfortable, a new survey found.
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Turning 65 With Nothing Saved for Retirement
Tweet Share on Facebook February 10, 2011 Comment (2)Just over a third (34 percent) of Americans have no retirement savings, up from 30 percent in 2009, according to a new Harris Poll of 2,151 adults.
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Young Investors are the Most Conservative
Tweet Share on Facebook February 9, 2011 Comment (3)Financial planners have traditionally advised young retirement savers to invest heavily in equities and then gradually transition to less volatile investments as they age. But financial market turmoil appears to have scared many young investors out of the stock market. Twenty-somethings are now the most conservative investors of any age group.
