From securities to life insurance, marketing regulations align across states and products and focus on promoting truthfulness and transparency.Setting up a retirement plan for your employees is one of the best investments you can make in your business’s future. Not only does it help attract and retain top talent, but it also opens the door to valuable tax credits that can offset the costs of getting started. This guide breaks down the key tax credits available to small businesses, making it easier than ever to create a strong financial foundation for your team while keeping costs under control.

Retirement planning is a great way to save and secure for your future. Despite small businesses employing nearly half of the American workforce, only 53% provide retirement plans. If you as an employer choose, we have recommended some options for retirement plans that work for small businesses, including education, SIMPLE IRAs, SEP IRAs, and 401(k).

A fixed annuity also known as a MYGA can be a smart investment choice for those looking to diversify their portfolios while earning higher than bank deposit rates.

In addition to the robo-advisors discussed in Part I and Part II of our series, traditional investment companies, including Goldman Sachs, Vanguard, Schwab, and Merrill have developed their own robo-advisory services.

In this piece, I review three additional robos: Albert, Ellevest, and Stash. Overall, each of these robo-advisors provide a distinct experience with the objective of helping individuals in different circumstances save for retirement (and other goals, but we focus primarily on retirement here) through a streamlined and convenient process.

Those who do not have the workplace infrastructure to help save for retirement can benefit from digital advice.

Robo advisers can be very practical and efficient for investors. While robos generally are beneficial as they often invest in low-cost funds and ETFs, ideally, they should also include quality single-premium immediate annuities (SPIAs) and deferred-income annuities (DIAs) to simplify investment planning and allow retirees to spend more.

Retirees are often faced with the fear of outliving their assets. This fear, also known as longevity risk, has been eased by the availability of annuities, specifically annuities that I’ve termed in my paper as guaranteed income products, or GIPs, that offer fixed payments until death.

Congress has been devoting a lot more attention to annuities lately--and with good reason. As discussed in a recent Morningstar paper, some annuities that we call GIPs, or guaranteed income products, fill a role that is sorely lacking in the retirement investment catalog: They supplement Social Security by providing stable streams of income during retirement.

Although they remain drastically underused as a retirement income tool, annuities have the potential to provide important benefits to retirees. High-quality products that guarantee an income stream can greatly improve the stability of people’s retirement by disbursing steady payments over the course of their lifetime. READ MORE

The DOL rule is cumbersome for plan sponsors and an opportunity for annuity sponsors, but it could be a lot more.

More individuals would likely save for retirement outside of employer-sponsored plans if such saving was automated, access to a match was provided, and lots of time and mental bandwidth were not needed to evaluate investment alternatives.

This year has brought a regulatory push to expand opportunities for ordinary investors to invest in asset classes that have been historically restricted to the wealthy and financially sophisticated.

Morningstar responds to the potential expansion of private investments and suggests adjustments to regulatory standards.