Talk about going from bad to worse. To optimistic insiders who bought shares of their own banking companies over the last 12 months, the stocks must have felt like falling knives. Indeed, the entire financial system seems to be falling apart so...

I have a friend, a financial advisor, who keeps what he calls The Yell-At-Tom Index. (His name is Tom.) Interestingly, The Yell-At-Tom Index (TYAT) is low right now, he says. That's right. Despite the utter carnage in the equity markets, the...

Steve Leuthold, the veteran chief investment officer of the Leuthold Group, is bullish. Why should you care? Leuthold, a curmudgeonly value manager who relies heavily on quantitative data (in addition to fundamentals), has posted a pretty solid...

In October, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the private retirement plans of Americans including 401(k) and IRA accounts dropped by some $2 trillion, or 20 percent in the 15 months ending September 30. Yes, those are big, scary...

In September and October, Houston-based financial advisor Mike Robertson was getting 60 calls a day from panicked clients. On Long Island, New York, about 5 percent of Mark Snyder's clients hit the phones. They're saying, What's happening? says...

Faced with gyrating markets, many retirees worry about exhausting their savings. To calm nerves, some clients may insist on reducing their spending. But if withdrawal plans have been carefully designed, advisors have little reason to make major...

As nervous retail investors, spooked by Wall Street's fading fortunes, started seeking a safer haven for their money in recent months and the potential to juice returns with seemingly no downside risk many were lured by offers of principal...

All eyes are on the stock market's gyrations and its impact on retirement plans. Bear markets are a vexing problem for retirees, of course, but that's not the real issue. The coming retirement crisis is worse than a simple bear market cycle. Just...