July 2014 - Runnymede Capital Management

An impartial review of the Allianz 365i Annuity with Income Maximizer Rider

The annuity business has grown in popularity as investors, especially those nearing retirement, look for options to protect themselves from stock market volatility and give them a decent income stream in retirement. With over $200 billion in annual sales, the annuity industry is big business with lots of salesmen trying to persuade you to make a purchase.

Today I will dig deep into the Allianz 365i Annuity which has been requested by several readers in recent weeks. Sales of indexed annuities, a fixed annuity that provides a minimum guaranteed rate of interest combined with an interest rate tied to the movement of an index, increased to $39.3 billion in 2013, a 17% gain year over year. This is the biggest percentage increase of any form of annuity.

Wednesday Wangdoodles

My favorite baseball writer Rob Neyer had a ongoing segment at ESPN.com called “”Wednesday Wangdoodles”” where he provided links to interesting articles around the web that he felt one should read about America's pastime. In my homage to Neyer, I will breathe life back into Wangdoodles from an investment perspective. I will help point you to interesting investment and financial articles that are worth a few minutes of your time. Hope you enjoy.

Graph of Every Job in America Shows Service Sector Dominates

The June non-farm payrolls report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that 288,000 non-farm payroll jobs were added during June – beating economists’ expectations of an increase by 211,000 jobs. The unemployment rate dropped from 6.3 percent to 6.1 percent.

According to the national employment report compiled by payroll processor Automatic Data Processing, the U.S. private sector added 281,000 new jobs last month, the fastest pace since late 2012. Of the new jobs added in June, 82% were service-sector, 5% were factory-sector, and 13% were construction.

First Half 2014 in Review: Melt up!

I've been in the business for almost 17 years now and I can't remember a time when virtually all assets classes went up together. Needless to say these are highly unusual times. If you have investments, you should send a thank you card to the central bankers for their easy monetary policy. The ECB is trying negative rates. The Fed's balance sheet is over $4.3 trillion. The Bank of Japan is buying assets faster than the Fed! While this may not end well, the financial markets are partying like it's 1999. With that said let's take a look back at the first half of 2014.

Month: July 2014