W&S Financial Group Distributors Inc. (W&S Financial Distributors) launched Retirement Picture, an interactive online tool designed to provide a snapshot that supports better understanding of retirement goals and risks.
Clients using Retirement Picture can develop visuals of retirement lifestyle scenarios through a series of interactive screens. Users choose scenarios of interest and gauge their retirement risk preparedness for each. The resulting report captures a picture of their retirement that may then be pursued with the financial representative. No personal identifying or protected information is required to use the tool. Clients may access it via a computer or mobile device, with a financial representative or on their own.
"By helping depict retirement choices and their associated risks, Retirement Picture provides financial professionals with conversation starters based on a client's self-identified interests and readiness," said Mark E. Caner, AEP, ChFC, CLU, CFP, president of W&S Financial Distributors. "The engagement that occurs between the client and the financial professional reviewing the snapshot helps build a stronger consultative relationship and potentially better aligns the client's needs and course of action."
"This tablet-friendly tool, originally developed by leading research trade association LIMRA, advances our services in providing user-friendly resources that help people invest for, live in and manage risk during retirement."
In other news:
According to a study by InvestingNerd, a division of NerdWallet, only 24 percent of professional investors were able to outperform the market index over the last 10 years.
As of December 2012, more than $7 trillion was invested in actively managed U.S. mutual funds and ETFs – almost three times the amount invested in passive funds. Yet the majority of these people who invested their assets over the past decade would have done better by simply investing in a passive index fund, typically at much lower cost.
Key findings from the study:
- Only 1,863 of 7,630 actively managed products, or 24 percent, outperformed the index average return of 7.30 percent;
- While active managers outperformed the index by 0.12 percent before fees, they then charged more in fees than the value they created;
- For risk-averse investors who prefer funds with lower volatility, active management is 1.96 percent less volatile than passive management across all asset classes.
In effort to help investors pick better funds, InvestingNerd launched a Mutual Fund Screener that allows investors to find, search and compare more than 15,000 funds. The tool allows investors to filter based upon these variables:
- A fund's type, size and style, minimum investment, and expense ratio;
- Specific fund families, manager's tenure and share class;
- Measures of performance, including R-squared, α, β, and risk-adjusted returns.
The screener also allows investors to compare the details of up to four funds at a time, providing unbiased quantitative recommendations based on key metrics. The screener aims to highlight critical factors often overlooked or underemphasized in assessing a fund's future performance.
The companies of OneAmerica achieved record overall sales in 2012, breaking the previous high water mark for the financial services enterprise set in 2011.
The company attributes the growth to individual life sales and 401(k) sales, both of which increased 24 percent over previous records set in 2011. Over the last six years, OneAmerica sales have achieved a compounded annual growth rate of 14 percent.
