Managing retirement wealth is one of the major financial decisions that individuals face. In this setting, I document a strong negative relationship between stock market returns and annuitization. Using a novel dataset with more than 103,000 actual payout decisions, I find that positive stock...

• We offer the first empirical exploration of fixed indexed annuity returns based upon actual contracts that were sold and actual interest that was credited.• Annuity returns have been competitive with alternative portfolios of stocks and bonds.• Their design has limited the downside...

A shared belief in the financial industry is that markets are driven by two types of regimes. Bull markets would be characterized by high returns and low volatility whereas bear markets would display low returns coupled with high volatility. Modeling the dynamics of different asset classes...

We analyze the impacts of an additional rider which is incorporated in recent retirement planning products. The payoff of these products is linked to the performance of a multi asset investment strategy and includes a minimum interest rate guarantee on the contributions.In addition, the buyer...

Using a novel dataset with over 100,000 actual payout decisions, we investigate the nature of the strong negative relationship between recent stock returns and the annuitization of retirement savings. After controlling for several standard explanations (e.g., wealth effects), we present evidence...

There is a paucity of academic literature on stable value funds, although they occupy such a prominent place among retirement investment vehicles. They are offered in roughly one half of all defined contribution plans in the USA, with over $640 billion dollars worth of assets under management....

We examine the effects of algorithmic trading (AT) on the US mutual fund industry and find that funds holding stocks with higher AT intensity have lower holdings returns and higher interim trading profits (return gap). This effect survives controls of effective spread and execution shortfall....

A significant part of the development in pension provision in many countries is the emergence of ‘Target Date Funds' or TDFs. In this paper we examine the proposition of de-risking through life and the guidance offered by TDFs in the decumulation phase following retirement. We investigate the...

Insurance companies often follow highly correlated investment strategies. As major investors in corporate bonds, their investment commonalities subject investors to fire-sale risk when regulatory restrictions prompt widespread divestment of a bond following a rating downgrade. Reflective of...

This paper shows that during episodes of market turmoil 13F institutional investors with short trading horizons sell their stockholdings to a larger extent than 13F institutional investors with longer trading horizons. This creates price pressure for stocks mostly held by short horizon...