Investment Instruments

Americans believe their personal finances will improve over the next year, and, according to a survey from The Hartford, this is translating into more people saving for retirement.

Some might call the Wall Street Journal's article on automatic enrollment "sensationalized pessimism," but if there's no such thing as bad publicity, then I'd say that putting auto-enrollment in the spotlight is a good thing.

The nation's largest public pension fund has posted its highest investment returns since before the recession, reporting returns of 20.7 percent for the fiscal year ended June 30, the fund's investment team announced Monday.

A new issue brief from the nonprofit Institutional Retirement Income Council tackles dilemmas and issues surrounding guaranteed lifetime income options that are just starting to pop up within the retirement plan market.

In a time during which uncertainty prevails – instead of assurances that a universe of options will remain stable throughout a multi-year period – it's generally best to plan for one of the likely possibilities but remain flexible and ready to change when more reliable tenets emerge.

More than half of respondents to a new Fidelity survey say if it weren't for their 401(k), they wouldn't be saving for retirement.