Risky Business: Conservative Investments
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Did the financial crisis make you more conservative with client retirement money? If so, have you begun using more traditionally conservative investments (money market accounts, short-term bonds) in your client's retirement income portfolio in the post-financial crisis world, or fewer of those investments? GD Research and Practical Perspectives decided to find out. In a recent report, titled “Advisor Best Practices in Delivering Retirement Income,” they found that advisors came down on the issue in nearly equal numbers (14 percent used more, 12 percent used less). The finding “underscores the tension among advisors who are balancing a deeper appreciation of risk tolerance with a challenging interest rate environment that constrains the use of traditional conservative investments,” the report says. Nevertheless, risk management was a growing priority among the advisors polled. Nearly 3 out of 10 advisors reported shifting their clients to more conservative allocations, and there was greater reported use of guaranteed income products such as variable annuities, as well as other products with low correlations to equities.
