Crash Survival Zone

As Underlying Assets Drop, So Do Returns on Investments; Insurers Grow Leery of ‘Wraps’

Investors are pouring billions into stable-value funds — just as these popular retirement-plan investments are looking less stable than usual.

Stable-value funds, available only in 401(k)s and other tax-deferred savings plans, are designed to preserve capital and generate smooth, positive returns — hence [...]

Home foreclosures, sub-prime loans, and underwater mortgages have understandably dominated concerns about the collapse of the housing market. Yet plunging home values have also triggered equally devastating consequences for the retirement hopes of millions of older homeowners. Perhaps even more than falling retirement-plan investments, 30 percent to 40 percent drops in housing values are destroying [...]

The 401(k) plan can be a powerful savings tool. But for more of us to enjoy a secure retirement, we need a bigger, better idea.

A growing number of policy experts who study 401(k)s think they fall short. So why not rethink America’s retirement system from the ground up? No, it won’t be easy: We’re in [...]

If you find yourself out of work or in a new position, you have decisions to make about the money left in your old retirement plan. Here are 5 options to consider.

Remember the good old days when the big R-word was “rebate” rather than “recession”?

That was before your 401(k) retirement plan melted down to a [...]

by Robert Powell

You can be hopeful about your nest egg — after you get real
Confront the brutal facts. Be hopeful, but confront the brutal facts. That’s the advice Jim Collins, the author of the best-selling book “Good to Great,” gives leaders of corporations who hope to improve the fortunes of their companies. That advice can [...]

By James Saft

That 8 percent annual return on investment you and your pension fund manager were banking on is now looking almost as optimistic as Madoff’s magic 12 percent, as deleveraging and deflation bite.

With extremely low or negative interest rates and everyone from consumers to banks trying to shed debt and assets at the same [...]

The stock-market rout has ignited a crisis of confidence for millions of Americans who manage their own retirement savings through 401(k) plans.

After watching her account drop 44% last year, Kristine Gardner, a 35-year-old information-technology project manager in Longview, Wash., feels no sense of security. “There’s just no guarantee that when you’re ready to retire you’re [...]

Volatile markets have saddled U.S. companies with a $409 billion deficit on pension plans, reversing a $60 billion surplus a year earlier, and will cut into earnings in 2009, consulting firm Mercer said.

As of December 31, pension plans among members of the Standard & Poor’s 1500 had $1.21 trillion of assets and $1.62 trillion of [...]