Are Investments Keeping Pace?

• Position: Brief Article

Senior corporate executives, including financial managers, are one of the economic segments under the most stress these days, despite generally high compensation. Many are juggling issues like early retirement or the failing health of parents, as well as paying for children's college costs. But unlike much of the general population, or younger workers, the biggest issue facing senior managers during the economic malaise has been depreciation of existing assets, not their ability to accumulate, says Walt Zultowski, senior vice president of research for Phoenix Asset Management in Hartford, Conn.

While an awful lot of high-tech investments have soured, Zultowski says he doesn't get the impression that executives are upset with themselves -- though "there is some sense that some people got a little risky" with their portfolios in the past few years. Not surprisingly, he says, "Probably the worst impact has been on people in their 30s and 40s in a high-tech orientation, who've been decimated in the past year."

Those troubles are presumably being reflected in the annual survey from Matthew Greenwald & Associates. Released in May, the survey found that as a result of the stock market slump, the number of workers who expect to live comfortably in retirement fell to 63 percent from 72 percent a year earlier...