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Many retirees don't maximize their Social Security retirement benefits because they start them at the wrong time or overlook more sophisticated claiming strategies. Those can be costly mistakes, according to a growing body of research. A couple that is strategic about when and how it files can boost its lifelong benefits by as much as $100,000 compared with what the spouses would get if both simply took benefits at 62, according to a March 2014 Journal of Financial Planning article by John Shoven from Stanford University and Sita Nataraj Slavov from the American Enterprise Institute. Advisers willing to learn Social Security planning's finer points can provide a service to clients or even win new ones when they may want them - just before they retire.   true       Jen Lake with Balasa Dinverno Foltz LLC in Itasca, Illinois started "deep diving" into claiming strategies several years ago. She studied the Social Security Administration's website and attended pr

Did you ever get to the point when trying unsuccessfully to fix something you just start whacking it with a wrench? I am getting the feeling that the Federal Reserve is approaching that point with the class="mandelbrot_refrag"> economy . Fed officials have recently outlined some unconventional policy options that may indicate desperation, bravado or even, perhaps, a backward kind of genius.   true       Two main points stand out: that the Fed might want to tolerate inflation above its 2 percent target for a period, and that it may wish to have an almost permanent portfolio of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> bonds on its balance sheet Taken together, these ideas underline the fragility and weakness of the recovery and indicate that a return to normal may be more of a hope than a hard target. In some ways this is all understandable. Here we are, the better part of a decade into the financial follies and despite ultra low rates and wave upon wave of special

Three former executives of New Stream Capital LLC, a failed Connecticut hedge fund, have pleaded guilty to conspiring to mislead their clients to keep their largest investor, federal prosecutors said on Thursday. David Bryson, Bart Gutekunst and Richard Pereira each pleaded guilty on Wednesday in the New Haven, Connecticut, federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, said the office of U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly in Connecticut. Bryson and Gutekunst were managing partners of Ridgefield, Connecticut-based New Stream, while Pereira was its chief financial officer.   true       All are free on bail, and face up to five years in prison when they are sentenced in August. A trial was scheduled to begin on June 2, court records show. The defendants had pleaded not guilty in February 2013 to securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy charges. Authorities said New Stream was once a $750 million firm that specialized in investments such as loans backed by real estate an

U.S. municipal bond funds reported $663.6 million of net inflows in the week ended May 21, compared with $616.5 million in inflows in the previous week, according to data released by Lipper on Thursday. _0"> The four-week moving average remained positive at $549.2 million, said Lipper, a unit of Thomson Reuters. High-yield muni bond funds reported inflows of $408.1 million, up from $348.3 million in the previous week. (U.S. municipal bond team)   true      

Investors in U.S.-based funds pulled $7.6 billion out of stock funds in the week ended May 21 on weak U.S. economic data and disappointing corporate results, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday. All of the outflows stemmed from stock exchange-traded funds, which posted $9.6 billion in withdrawals, while stock mutual funds attracted $2 billion in net inflows, which were the biggest in four weeks. The net outflows were the biggest since February. ETFs are thought to reflect the behavior of institutional investors, while mutual funds are commonly purchased by class="mandelbrot_refrag"> retail investors. The SPDR Standard & Poor's 500 ETF Trust, which tracks the benchmark class="mandelbrot_refrag"> S&P 500 stock index, posted the biggest outflows, of $4.2 billion.   true       The outflows from stock ETFs could speak to a lack of confidence in the U.S. class="mandelbrot_refrag"> economy and worries a

Many folks hired to be financial planners may not be planning their time well, a number of studies show. But those who do are more successful and tend to grow their firms with fewer drawbacks, such as stress and exhaustion. Successful firms stand apart from their peers in three key areas: They have a clear target client; they have efficient systems, such as for scheduling and delegation; and they reserve time for planning. Sunit Bhalla, who spoke at a recent National Association of Personal Financial Advisors conference about better class="mandelbrot_refrag"> business planning, says advisers simply need to spend time on the right activities. A Fort Collins, Colorado-based adviser to engineers and technology professionals, Bhalla said good planning allows him time for family and volunteering, and more revenue and profit than he ever imagined. He said he focused on infrastructure first, putting revenue and profit aside to invest in technology. He chose class="m

BlackRock, the world's biggest asset manager, said on Friday one of its main bond funds had cut its holdings of peripheral class="mandelbrot_refrag"> euro zone government debt to their lowest since the height of the crisis. Scott Thiel, the firm's head of European and global class="mandelbrot_refrag"> bonds , said it was not only the magnitude of the rally in the bloc's lower-rated class="mandelbrot_refrag"> bonds that had prompted his Fixed Income Global Opportunities fund to book profits, but also his reluctance to bet on the European Central Bank starting to print money. "We do remain positive on the European periphery but are cautious in the current environment and our positions in the region are now at their lowest level in over two years," Thiel, who oversees assets worth around $100 billion for BlackRock, told Reuters by email. He added he was "not convinced" the ECB would introduce a money-printin

Apollo Global Management LLC co-founder Marc Rowan raised $72.8 million by selling shares in the private equity firm in the last two weeks, as limits restricting insiders from selling stock based on its IPO agreement are gradually lifted. Regulatory filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) show Rowan sold 2.9 million shares, equivalent to a 0.8 percent stake in Apollo, between May 12 and May 22. As a result, his stake dropped from 13.7 percent to 12.9 percent. The stock sale comes as Apollo shares are down close to 30 percent from a record high reached in January amid speculation from some investors that the firm's dividend-boosting asset sales seen recently may not be easily replicated to the same extent soon. Rowan's transactions were carried out under a prearranged plan for company insiders selling shares that has been adopted by the SEC. This plan does not allow his estate planning vehicle to determine the timing of the stock sales based on materi

Fund investors worldwide pulled $7 billion out of stock funds in the week ended May 21 on weak U.S. economic data and disappointing corporate results, data from a Bank of America class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Merrill Lynch Global Research report showed on Friday. _0"> The outflows from stock funds, which include both mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, reversed the prior week's inflows of $11 billion. Funds that specialize in U.S. class="mandelbrot_refrag"> stocks posted $10.9 billion in outflows, according to the report, which also cited data from fund tracker EPFR Global. Both the net outflows from all stock funds and the outflows from U.S.-focused stock funds were the biggest in just two weeks. Funds that specialize in long-term U.S. Treasuries attracted record inflows of $3.1 billion, meanwhile, according to EPFR Global data. The outflows came as the class="mandelbrot_refrag"> S&P 500 edged 0.03 percent lower over t

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, one of the world's biggest dealmakers, said it is hard to find good deals because most assets are fully priced, but it will be patient and focus on emerging class="mandelbrot_refrag"> markets to find deals that offer long-term value. CPPIB, which manages Canada's national pension fund, said on Thursday its assets rose to a record C$219.1 billion ($201.39 billion) at the end of fiscal 2014, as its investment portfolio returned 16.5 percent for the year ended March 31. Chief Executive Mark Wiseman said CPPIB will put a disproportionate amount of effort into finding deals in developing class="mandelbrot_refrag"> markets because its long-term investment horizon allows it more time than many competitors to reap the benefits. "We are continuing to try and develop our portfolio in growth markets, places like class="mandelbrot_refrag"> India , class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Brazil

Speculators' net bearish bets on U.S. 10-year Treasury note class="mandelbrot_refrag"> futures rose in the latest week, while speculative net shorts in Eurodollar futures held near their record level, according to class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday. _0"> The amount of speculators' bearish, or short, positions in 10-year Treasury class="mandelbrot_refrag"> futures exceeded bullish, or long, positions by 97,895 contracts on May 20, according to the CFTC's latest Commitments of Traders data. A week earlier, speculators held 82,180 net short positions in 10-year T-note futures. Speculative net shorts in Eurodollar futures declined to 1.615 million in the latest week, down 3,125 from the record level set the prior week, the latest data showed. (Reporting by Richard Leong ; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)

For two months last summer, Stanford Law School professor Joseph Grundfest locked himself away in his home office in California's Portola Valley. Grundfest's house overlooks the Santa Cruz Mountains, but his attention was fixed on the piles of paper - mostly U.S. Supreme Court opinions and Congressional reports from the 1930s - stacked on his desk and the surrounding floor. Grundfest researched and wrote for weeks with monastic obsessiveness, speaking to hardly anyone but his research assistants and his wife, who made sure he was eating. When he emerged in August, Grundfest - an influential former Commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission who now sits on the board of the private equity firm KKR & Co - had in hand a 78-page paper larded with more than 400 footnotes. His aim was nothing less than to destroy securities fraud class action lawsuits by shareholders, which have been the bane of many businesses in the U.S. since the Supreme Court endorsed the c

The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals were reported by 2000 GMT on Friday: ** Leading global agribusiness group Archer Daniels Midland Co is among the bidders for German drink and food flavours maker Wild in a deal valued at 1.5 billion euros ($2.04 billion), sources familiar with the deal said on Friday. ** Australia's Treasury class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Wine Estates Ltd, the world's No. 2 wine company, denied it was in talks to be acquired by China's Bright Food Group Co Ltd, the latest potential suitor named in a string of media reports that have sent its share price surging. Bright Food also denied the report of talks by the Australian Financial Review, which comes just three days after Treasury class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Wine rejected a A$3.1 billion ($2.9 billion) takeover bid from U.S. private equity firm KKR & Co. ** UniCredit, Italy's biggest bank by assets, is considering the sale of more of its privat

Four major Silicon Valley companies have formally agreed to pay $324.5 million to settle claims brought by employees who accused them of limiting competition by colluding not to poach each other's talent. The settlement, between class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Apple Inc , class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Google Inc, class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Intel Corp , class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Adobe Systems Inc and roughly 64,000 workers, was disclosed in papers filed late on Thursday with a federal court in San Jose, California. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh has been asked to preliminarily approve the accord at a June 19 hearing, over an objection by one of the four named plaintiffs, Michael Devine, who says the settlement let the companies off too easily.   true       The payout was originally reported by Reuters but not officially confirmed. Lawyers for the plaintiffs may seek up to 25 percent of the settlement amount in legal fees. Filed

Charges against a California man accused of abducting and raping a 15-year-old girl stem from brutal crimes committed a decade ago when she was first snatched, prosecutors said on Friday in response to remarks by neighbors that the woman showed no signs of distress. Isidro Garcia, 41, was charged with kidnapping, rape and lewd acts upon a child and a judge on Thursday ordered him held on bail of $1 million, in connection with crimes Orange County prosecutors say he committed against the woman when she was a minor. Now 25, the woman told detectives she endured a decade of physical and sexual abuse by Isidro, was forced into marriage in 2007 and later bore his child. She contacted authorities this week after reaching out to her sister on class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Facebook , police said. "We're talking about the kidnapping of a 15-year-old child who was taken from her mother, taken from her home, taken from her neighborhood and for the past 10 years she has be

class="mandelbrot_refrag"> EBay Inc initially believed that its customers' data was safe as forensic investigators reviewed a network security breach discovered in early May and made public this week, a senior executive told Reuters on Friday. class="mandelbrot_refrag"> EBay has come under fire over its handling of the cyberattack, in which hackers accessed personal data of all 145 million users, ranking it among the biggest such attacks launched on a corporation to date. "For a very long period of time we did not believe that there was any eBay customer data compromised," global marketplaces chief Devin Wenig said, in the first comments by a top eBay executive since the e-commerce company disclosed the breach on Wednesday. EBay moved "swiftly to disclose" the breach after it realized customer data was involved, he said. Wenig would not say when the company first realized that the cyberattackers accessed customer data, nor how

While attention in Cannes is focused on film premieres and stars on the red carpet, movie sales and deals struck by high rollers and bit players are what keep the Mediterranean seaside town awash in money. Eighteen film titles ranging from 83-year-old French director Jean-Luc Godard's "Adieu au Langage" (Goodbye to Language) to 25-year-old Canadian director Xavier Dolan's "Mommy" are competing for the top Palme d'Or prize that will be announced on Saturday night. But that is just a drop in the bucket compared to what festival officials estimate are some 5,000 films shown here, in complete form or as trailers, to potential buyers or investors. There were fewer big-budget Hollywood titles in the Cannes market this year, but Jerome Paillard, chief executive of the Marche du Film (Film Market), sees that as cyclical. "It's not necessarily a short-term threat because most of the class="mandelbrot_refrag"> business we do isn't

British newspapers reported the following class="mandelbrot_refrag"> business stories on Sunday. Reuters has not independently verified these media reports and does not vouch for their accuracy. _0"> The Sunday Times INTERCONTINENTAL class="mandelbrot_refrag"> HOTELS SNUBS 6 BLN STG OFFER FROM U.S. Britain's biggest hotel company has rebuffed a 6 billion pound takeover approach from a U.S. suitor amid fears that it could be the next target of the corporate tax exodus from the United States. Directors at class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Intercontinental Hotels Group , which operates in 4,700 class="mandelbrot_refrag"> hotels in 100 countries are understood to have turned down an approach from an investment fund. AMAZON SHIELDS 11 BLN STG FROM TAXMAN Amazon funnelled 11 billion pounds through its small office in Luxembourg last year to minimise its tax bill in Britain and across the Continent. The online class=

The Thai military may have a well-rehearsed coup playbook after overthrowing a dozen governments, but it's never come up against the power of social media, as used by dissenters worldwide to share information - and that may prove a game-changer. Since seizing control of the state on Thursday, Thailand's armed forces have arrested protest leaders, banned gatherings, gagged domestic media, blocked cable news networks and captured weapons from militant opposition groups. But they are struggling to deal with protests in cities that are erupting more like flash mobs than political rallies. Protesters appear in droves only to melt away when soldiers link hands to encircle them. And when troops pick off and detain more vocal demonstrators, the others swiftly disperse and regroup elsewhere. In uprisings as different in origin and outcome as the so-called Arab Spring and the London riots in 2011, the tech-savvy have harnessed social media platforms such as microblogging site Twitter

The "X-Men" mutant superheroes smashed into U.S. and Canadian theaters and collected $90.7 million in ticket sales through Sunday, keeping monster hit "Godzilla" at bay and heading toward a decisive win over a long holiday weekend. "X-Men: Days of Future Past" was expected to bring in $110 million by the end of the U.S. Memorial Day holiday on Monday, distributor 20th Century Fox said. The movie has already earned a global total of $261.8 million after opening at No. 1 in all 119 countries around the world. Last week's winner, monster movie remake "Godzilla", dropped to second place with $31.4 million through Sunday, according to estimates from box office tracking firm Rentrak. Its sales were projected to reach $39 million by Monday. Romantic comedy "Blended" claimed the No. 3 spot, taking in $14.2 million and on pace for about $17 million through Monday. "X-Men: Days of Future Past" is the seventh movie in the bloc

The Thai army's imposition of martial law is another blow to the country's tourist industry, adding to the economic pain from six months of destabilizing street protests as class="mandelbrot_refrag"> airlines cut back on flights and concern over insurance adds to travelers' worries. Tourism officials put a brave face on the latest twist in the long-running civil strife, saying it was too early to gauge the impact on tourist arrivals, which already dipped nearly 6 percent in the first three months of the year. "It might look scary and to outsiders it might sound violent, but if we look at it from another angle it should bring more security and peace which should reassure tourists," said Supawan Tanomkieatipume, vice-president of the Thai class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Hotels Association.   true       But some travel agencies said they expected a further fall in bookings after Tuesday's news, especially from corporate travelers, wh