Financial Planning

British consulting group Lane Clark & Peacock said that the pension deficits for Britain's top 100 companies by market value totaled more than $66 billion as of July, and could affect the way businesses using the new International Financial Reporting Standards are run.

Advisors who are planning for the rest of 2005 face changes that could derail even the best-made investor plans. Calm waters in both equity and fixed-income markets could face hurricane gales in the face of terrorist attacks, a continued low-return environment and implosions in overvalued sectors. As future projections call for more of the same, advisors stay wary.

* AICPA WINS AWARD FOR FINANCIAL LITERACY EFFORTS: The American Institute of CPAs has received a 2005 Summit Award from the American Society of Association Executives for its national 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy program.

What criteria determines a good or bad credit risk?

A survivor annuity, either in the form of a qualified joint and survivor annuity, or QJSA, if the participant is alive on the starting date, or a qualified pre-retirement survivor annuity, or QPSA, if the participant dies before the starting date, must be provided to married plan participants and their spouses with respect to certain qualified plans.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a revised exposure draft, titled, "Accounting for Transfers of Financial Assets."

The Governmental Accounting Standard Board recently published a guide to its statements 43 and 45, both which address post-employment benefits besides pensions.

Structured products are wending their way into portfolios, with investors recently sucking up half a billion dollars on just three new issues of the vehicles - three of some 67 offerings of structured products launched this year.

* N.J. ATTORNEY GENERAL BUSTS AMEX FINANCIAL ADVISORS: American Express Financial Advisors Inc. will pay New Jersey $5 million and implement company-wide reforms to address allegations that it failed to reasonably supervise its financial advisors.

Ask any reputable financial planner how to secure a decent retirement, and you might just get a laundry list of what you should or should not do. Most represent pretty good thoughts.