The main reason that treasuries do well when stocks don’t is that the market usually predicts that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates to fight off a recession or an impending recession. Another reason is what is called “flight to safety”, which means a lot of investors are moving their money out of stocks and into less volatile, much safer treasury bonds.

A general rule of thumb when it comes to taking money out of qualified tax-deferred retirement accounts, such as regular IRAs and 401(k) plans, is this: Postpone withdrawing from them as long as you can. In other words, if you have other sources of retirement income or investment principal you can use, you should almost always use that first.

There's legislation wending its way through congress that could have a big effect on savers and retirees. One of the changes proposed is to make it easier for annuities to be part of an employer's retirement plan options (its 401(k) plan, usually).

If you don’t take enough risk when you’re young, you might not be able to retire when you want.. If you take too much risk when you’re older, you can be hurt badly by a serious market downturn. Diversification still works and is most important when you’re older.

The pace of increase in health care expenses is slowing for now, which is good news. But the trend is definitely still upward, and the uncertainty surrounding the topic isn't going away.