Five Questions for the Top Retirement Advisor

Many times the biggest mistake is they are too conservative in the sense that they don't have a proper equity allocation in their account. Especially in a down market, people run away from the equity exposure. So what we're seeing right now is people tend to be too fearful and too conservative, thinking that markets will never return to growth.

What challenges do you face when modeling or forecasting clients' retirement incomes and cash flows, and how do you resolve them?

Time horizon and client expectations. Every client is a long-term investor when things are good, and they become very short-term when things are bad. It's by managing those expectations and educating them on the cycles of the economy and cycles of the market that we help them to stay the course.

What mix of products and solutions do you use most often and why?

We use variable annuities, exchange-traded funds, and dividend-paying stocks primarily. The reason we use them is because they have flexibility to be able to play both sides of the market. They have liquidity, and in the case of the variable annuities, they can also have a guarantee of income stream or a guarantee to the heirs or the spouse, which tends to be important in some cases.