Retirement News

Will you be ready for retirement? Retirement-plan ratings firm Fiduciary Benchmarks has unveiled an index that measures how well 401 plans for thousands of companies are preparing their employees.

"The reason that 'guru' is such a popular word is because 'charlatan' is so hard to spell." - William J. Bernstein The time is right for an investor's manifesto.

Even though government employees enjoy pensions that often allow them to retire with 80 percent to 90 percent of their final year's pay guaranteed forever, some of them game the system by taking advantage of various pension-spiking schemes.

North Carolina communities already facing tight local budgets may have to spend more to beef up pension plans for municipal workers, a newspaper reported Friday.

Older Americans who were raised on stories of the Great Depression and acquired lifelong habits of thrift now find themselves crowding soup kitchens and food pantries in greater numbers for the first time after seeing retirement funds, second jobs and nest eggs wiped out by recession.

Since it's nearly December, let's review a few year-end planning ideas, with more to come next week.

Invigorated by state house victories earlier this month in Virginia and New Jersey, Republicans are turning their attention to governorships in New England, where they believe the retirement of four incumbents and a competitive race in Massachusetts has created wide-open opportunities.

A LOCAL well respected Optometrist, who had almost taken early retirement, has been head-hunted by Barraclough and Stiles opticians.

For the first time, as of Jan. 1, 2010, individuals with an adjusted gross income of more than $100,000 can convert an existing IRA or 401 account into a Roth IRA.

While taxes for the year 2009 aren't due to the end of April 2010, only one full month remains to take certain actions that will minimize those tax liabilities.

THE Employees Provident Fund saw a 20 per cent increase in withdrawals from retirees in the third quarter of this year from a year ago.

Britain's Vodafone has revealed it is planning to close its final salary pension scheme.

WHEN he visited The Bee's editorial board last week, Rob Feckner, president of the California Public Employees Retirement System Board, didn't deliver many surprises.

Eagle County's proposed spending plan for 2010 would eliminate 30 full-time position along with cuts to down-payment assistance, early childhood programs and community service grants.

American International Group Inc. has agreed to settle all legal disputes with its former chairman Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the company said late Wednesday.

Connecticut plans to join Ohio in suing Standard & Poora s, Moodya s Corp. and Fitch Ratings for their a oenegligent, reckless and incompetent worka in grading investments made by state pension funds, according to Attorney General Richard Blumenthal .

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 25 -- Some RM1.97 billion has been withdrawn under the Employees Provident Fund Retirement Withdrawals in the third quarter of 2009 , an increase from the RM1.64 billion withdrawn in the corresponding period last year.

Fidelity Investments today launched an online Roth IRA conversion calculator that allows advisors to walk their clients through a series of questions to help determine if converting their IRA is appropriate and then figure out whether or not to conduct a full or partial conversion.

Getting out from under your mortgage probably sounds like a no-brainer. If you have the cash, why not pay off the house and avoid the hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest payments you'd otherwise have to make over the next 30 years? Even forking over a little extra each month will save you a boatload and pay off your debt years early.

A gym owner-turned-investment fund manager was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme that left investors short $35 million once the fraud unraveled.