If you are approaching retirement, chances are you have been started exploring how you might enjoy a financially confident retired lifestyle.
This includes maximizing the value of your retirement portfolio – and creating dependable income streams that last as long as you need them to.
For retirement investors, one way to solve for this concern is drawing on a lifetime income stream from an annuity. But how appealing are annuities in the face of historically low interest rates? Especially ones such as those we have experienced for the last several years?
Since 2009, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, most developed countries have experienced a low-interest rate environment. Monetary authorities have sought to use low-interest rate schemas in order to spur economic growth and prevent deflation.
The U.S. saw rates cut to effectively 0% until 2016, when they began to inch higher. Still, today, the federal funds rate is only 2.5%, up just half-a-point from this time last year when it measured 2%.
