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Articles on Wealth Management Topics

Cost-Effective Annuities to Exchange for Those You've Been Sold

To pick up where we left off in our last blog post on the role of annuities in a retirement portfolio, immediate annuities can serve a useful function. But like any other financial product, there are cost-effective, well-engineered annuities and expensive, poorly-designed ones. Here are some welcome and interesting annuity features that you may be unaware of if your only prior experience with annuities is through an insurance salesperson:

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Do Annuities Have a Role to Play in Your Retirement Portfolio?

If there's one investment vehicle that causes more controversy than any other, it has to be the annuity. Opinions among financial professionals are usually divided along the lines of compensation model. Commission-based brokers and insurance salespeople tend to think more highly of them, and to recommend them more frequently, than Fee-Only financial planners.

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Are Roth 401(k)'s Right For You?

In the prior posting in our series, Articles on Wealth Management Topics, we discussed the basics of the Roth 401(k) plans that many employers have introduced in recent years. But are these plans right for you, or should you stick to contributing to the traditional 401(k)? Let's talk about some of the circumstances that would make Roth 401(k) contributions more attractive.

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Let's Talk Retirement Withdrawal Rates

Years ago, I was quoted in Newsweek as having said, "If you can't get by on the wise 4 percent withdrawal rate [from your retirement nest egg], you should have a serious talk with yourself and your spouse about your priorities, trade-offs and aspirations." While it's certainly nice being mentioned in a national publication, the material I contributed to the article had nothing to do with withdrawal rates from retirement portfolios. And financial planning rules of thumb are next to useless.

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