In this post I wanted to discuss the plain vanilla Fixed Annuity option. A Fixed Annuity is offered by an insurance company and provides the owner a stated rate of interest each year during the contract. The closest equivalent investment would be a CD. Whereas CDs at a bank generally are offered for shorter time periods, Fixed Annuities provide slightly higher rates of interest by committing to longer investment horizons (2 – 10 years). Similar to CDs, surrendering the Fixed Annuity before … [Read more...]

There is a lot that has been written on the topic of diversification in investing. Generally diversification is understood to mean dividing your investment assets up among types that move in opposite or uncorrelated directions so that they’re all not moving up or down at the same time. Over the years as I’ve worked with prospective clients and even clients who are slower than others in moving all assets under our purview, I’ve noticed that some of them may have misunderstood proper … [Read more...]

I recently had a conversation with a client couple.  The wife indicated that she planned to take her Social Security of $1,500 this upcoming October when she reached full retirement age.  She and her husband are still working, but she wanted the money because she didn’t want to wait and wasn’t sure how long she would live. She reasoned that since she was full retirement age there would be no reduction, which is true. But she didn’t think through the full ramifications of how much … [Read more...]

In our last article, we discussed the importance of having at least one IRA account that is protected from market losses.  This is because Required Minimum Distributions happen each year after age 72 and  RMD's will require the liquidation of investments, which could be down in value.  Since the IRS allows the satisfaction of an RMD from any IRA account, an investor could satisfy the RMD or ALL accounts from the IRA account that did not lose money. In this article, we’ll dig … [Read more...]

In the past, Allianz has been a company that I have gone to time and time again for income annuities. In particular, they have the strength for income annuities that have increasing income over the years. Recently, Allianz caught my eye again for a different tool they have rolled out. This investment does not have any income benefits, rather it is used for growth only. What I like about the tool is that it has for investment options that can be mixed and matched depending on the level of risk … [Read more...]