Steve Utkus oversees the Vanguard Center for Retirement Research, which studies many aspects of retirement in America—from how individuals start saving and investing in the early part of their careers, to how they prepare for actual retirement, to how they spend down their savings once they’re retired.
One of the vexing questions in the investment world is why many investors are inattentive to fees. While Vanguard has helped create a class of investors that’s fee-conscious and fee-aware, the fact remains that many individual investors remain in high-cost funds (and in other high-fee advisory strategies).
The latest figures are out from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) in Washington, D.C. Unsurprisingly, “retirement confidence” remains down from its peak in 2007, and is at levels similar to what we saw during the Great Recession.
What’s going on? In 2007, fully 70% of American workers were either “very” or “somewhat” confident about their retirement. By 2011, this group had fallen to 52%, a decline of 18 percentage points. Similarly, the number of workers on the negative side of confidence rose by 18 points—from 29% in 2007 to 47% in 2011. In short, we’ve moved from a 70/30 confidence/no confidence world to a 50/50 world.
A new report just came out on the retirement prospects for baby boomers.* Its top-line result was that 40% of all boomers aren’t prepared for retirement.
Whenever the topic turns to retirement in America, the language is fairly dismal. Last week, I saw a flyer from an investment company that highlighted a crisis in retirement savings. Then I read an article offering expert views on how retirement in America is endangered. This type of news coverage is pretty common. And yet, is it right?
In the investment world, you occasionally come across a simple yet striking observation. Here’s an example from a recent client letter of Howard Marks, chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, L.P., and one of Vanguard’s external investment advisors:
It’s a new year, so here are a few investment and retirement thoughts that come to mind for 2012.
When it comes to investing, Theme #1 among investors, especially among the majority of the retired or conservative crowd, continues to be the insatiable search for yield. In this regard, I would encourage investors not to be misled by the spectacular total returns on fixed income markets. Long-term Treasury bonds were up 30% in 2011 (as measured by the Barclays Long-Term Treasury Index). That substantial total return arose mainly from a large capital gain due to falling interest rates. (Recall the sequence: Panic about Europe and a volatile U.S. stock market led to a flight to Treasuries by global investors, which drove up bond prices—i.e., resulting in a capital gain on bonds—and consequently drove down their yields.)
