Annuities offer retirees a steady income stream, with fixed annuities providing guaranteed interest rates during the accumulation phase and predictable payouts in retirement. 

April 2025’s top fixed annuities include: Gainbridge’s SteadyPace at 5.80% over five years, Reliance Standard’s 5.00% option, and higher-premium offerings like MassMutual’s Premier Voyage 5, which reaches up to 4.90% for $1M+ investments. 

Rates generally vary by premium size and contract length, with most products requiring $10,000–$100,000 minimums and terms of three to five years. Fixed annuities also offer tax-deferred growth and can be customized with features like survivor or death benefits. However, higher returns often require larger upfront investments, and early withdrawals can trigger penalties. 

Despite their complexity, fixed annuities remain a useful tool for generating reliable retirement income, particularly for those seeking stability, tax deferral, and no contribution limits.

The Trump administration has proposed major federal budget cuts for 2026, aiming to slash over $160 billion, including deep reductions to climate and clean energy programs. The plan targets more than $15 billion in previously approved funding for carbon capture and renewable energy, along with $6 billion earmarked for electric vehicle charging stations. 

According to the White House, these programs failed to deliver results and should instead rely on private sector leadership guided by market demand. The proposal would shift focus toward boosting domestic production of fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and critical minerals. 

Additional cuts would hit the EPA, USDA, and NOAA, reducing support for environmental research, farm conservation, and food aid abroad. Critics argue the plan undermines public health and rural development, while its passage in Congress remains uncertain.

Finsum: Obviously ESG is going to take an initial hit with the administration, but it has always remained a very long term investment, and could be a good time to buy low. 

Vanguard has introduced its first dynamic asset allocation fixed income model portfolios, expanding its suite with the Fixed Income Risk Diversification and Fixed Income Total Return options. These new models are designed to support financial advisors by actively adjusting allocations throughout the year, guided by Vanguard’s 10-year Capital Markets Model forecasts. 

Aimed at outperforming benchmarks like the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate and Universal Indexes, the portfolios are tailored to varying risk appetites and investment timelines. The Risk Diversification model emphasizes global investment-grade bonds for stability, while the Total Return model adds high-yield exposure for greater accumulation potential.

 With expense ratios of 0.05% and 0.08% respectively, the models reflect Vanguard’s continued focus on low-cost, research-driven solutions. 

Finsum: Their debut also aligns with broader industry momentum toward model portfolios, with advisors increasingly favoring them over traditional fund-of-funds structures.

Over a 27-year period ending in Q3 2024, Cliffwater found that U.S. buyouts (private equity) consistently traded at a 29% EBITDA multiple discount relative to public equities, contributing significantly to private equity’s historical outperformance. This discount, combined with higher earnings yields and potential valuation convergence, helped private equity deliver a 6% gross return premium, which nets to about 2.2% after fees compared to public markets. 

Several structural tailwinds reinforce private equity’s appeal, including a shrinking pool of public companies, persistently low credit spreads, and extreme valuation gaps between large-growth and small-value stocks. 

These valuation disparities, combined with the relative strength of the U.S. dollar, give large-cap firms and private equity buyers strategic advantages in acquiring smaller domestic and foreign targets. Meanwhile, the sluggish IPO and M&A markets in 2025 have led to a spike in discounted private equity secondary sales, offering further entry points for opportunistic investors. 

Finsum: Despite recent macro headwinds, these intersecting forces create a compelling backdrop for private equity to continue outperforming.

Target-date funds are designed for investors with a specific retirement date in mind, automatically adjusting their investment mix to become more conservative as that date approaches. 

These funds typically hold a variety of mutual funds rather than individual stocks or bonds, making them a diversified “fund of funds” that simplifies asset allocation. Early in an investor’s career, target-date funds emphasize growth by leaning heavily on equities, then gradually shift toward bonds to preserve capital as retirement nears. 

Each fund follows a predetermined glide path, which guides the transition from aggressive to conservative investments over time. Investors benefit from a hands-off approach, as the fund handles rebalancing and risk adjustments without the need for active management. 

Finsum: Overall, target-date funds offer a convenient, age-based solution that combines diversification, risk control, and simplicity in a single investment vehicle.

Investors have continued to pull billions from ESG (environmental, social, and governance) funds in early 2025, amid growing political backlash and shifting federal policies under President Trump’s administration. 

In the first quarter alone, ESG funds saw $6.1 billion in outflows, marking the tenth straight quarter of declines, according to Morningstar. Much of this retreat has been attributed to the administration’s aggressive rollback of climate and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives, including pulling out of the Paris Agreement and cutting subsidies for green energy. 

Despite political resistance, ESG investing remains popular among younger investors and retains institutional support, particularly in pro-ESG states like California. Analysts argue ESG strategies still offer long-term value, positioning investors in companies better equipped to handle emerging environmental and social risks. 

Finsum: Advocates maintain it's a smart approach to building resilience and returns in an evolving global economy, and necessary to combat emerging environmental issues. 

While overall annuity sales have cooled slightly from their post-pandemic highs, persistent economic unease may be fueling renewed demand. In Q1 2025, total annuity sales reached $105.4 billion—just 1% below the all-time high recorded in the same quarter last year, according to LIMRA. 

The organization attributes this strength to rising consumer anxiety, which in March drove sales to their second-highest monthly total on record. Registered index-linked annuities (RILAs) continued to shine, with sales up 21% year over year, bolstered by product innovation and growing interest from both insurers and investors. 

Meanwhile, fixed indexed annuities saw a 7% decline but still posted the fifth-highest quarterly sales ever at $26.7 billion. 

Finsum: For those looking for security with some upside in their retirement portfolios annuities products could provide an outlet. 

U.S. farmers are facing a sharp drop in soybean and pork exports to China just as planting season ramps up, signaling serious trouble ahead. With China previously accounting for a major share of demand, especially for these two products, the sudden decline in sales — some dropping more than 70% — is hitting a fragile agricultural sector hard. 

The current trade dispute, now broader and more severe than the 2018 tariff standoff, comes with no clear support for producers and is compounded by related conflicts with other trade partners like Canada. This creates a supply chain crunch, not just at the point of export but also in key input materials like fertilizer, making the hit to farmers multifaceted. 

Domestic consumption isn’t likely to absorb the surplus either, especially as U.S. demand for pork remains soft and efforts like increasing biodiesel requirements are not enough to offset lost international sales. 

For many growers, the loss of access to a market of over a billion consumers could be a lasting blow with no easy substitute.

After years of prioritizing safety, retirement savers are once again embracing market risk, as sales of variable annuities tied to investment fund performance surged in late 2024. According to Wink’s latest data, traditional variable annuity sales climbed 53% year over year to $18 billion, outpacing every other annuity category tracked. 

Interest also rose in registered index-linked annuities, which mirror stock index performance, with sales growing 38% to $35 billion, while fixed indexed annuities grew by 22% to $32 billion. In contrast, demand dropped sharply for multi-year guaranteed annuities — down 45% to $29 billion — as fewer consumers sought fixed returns. 

This rebound in market-linked products reflects renewed investor optimism but also hints at insurer caution, with some reallocating capital toward products that require less financial backing. 

Finsum: Expiring surrender periods on older annuities may be freeing up funds for reinvestment, fueling the uptick in new variable annuity contracts.

Lawsuits against retirement plan sponsors have increasingly focused on excessive fees and the failure to select lower-cost investment vehicles, like Collective Investment Trusts (CITs), which many sponsors are surprised to learn have existed longer than mutual funds. 

CITs, which will reach their centennial in 2027, operate much like mutual funds in structure and oversight, but typically offer lower fees and greater flexibility in pricing. Larger retirement plans have rapidly adopted CITs, with plans over $500 million in assets now allocating about 41% to them, up significantly from just a few years ago. Despite their benefits, some plan sponsors hesitate to adopt CITs due to their lack of publicly searchable tickers and unfamiliar regulation by the OCC rather than the SEC. 

However, CITs offer key advantages, including fiduciary governance and the potential for customized pricing through asset aggregation or specialized share classes. 

With education and communication, sponsors and participants can overcome initial concerns and access the cost-efficiency and fiduciary alignment CITs provide.