Saving a six- or even seven-figure sum for retirement isn’t an easy feat, even if you have decades to accomplish it. In March 2020, approximately 26% of adults 60 and older had less than $100,000 saved for retirement, according to an American Advisors Group survey, but that masks the true scope of the problem. In April 2020, as the country began feeling the financial strain of the COVID-19 crisis, the percentage of adults 60 and older with less than $100,000 in retirement savings jumped to 43%.

This could be related to the market downturn that hurt the value of many people’s retirement portfolios, or it could reflect some early withdrawals taken to help cover living expenses while some of these individuals could not work. Whatever the cause, the result is the same. These people will have a difficult time retiring comfortably on what they have, so they need to develop a new strategy.

Image source: Getty Images.

Here’s a closer look at how far $100,000 goes in retirement, along with what you can do to get more money in your retirement account and help what you have last longer.

Why $100,000 is nowhere near enough for retirement

The average household headed by an adult 65 or older spends a little over $50,000 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Based on these figures, a $100,000 nest egg would last less than two years in retirement if you relied upon that alone. You’ll probably have Social Security benefits to help you out, and you might spend less than the average, so you could feasibly stretch your savings out a few more years than this. 

But unless you only expect your retirement to last a short time, you will likely outlive your $100,000 in savings. That could force you to rely upon family members for support or risk falling behind on your bills. If you’re concerned about this, you should take steps immediately to reconsider your retirement plan.

How to design a more secure retirement

Delaying your retirement is one of the best ways to combat a small nest egg, because it gives you additional time to save while reducing the number of years of savings you need. It may also give your retirement portfolio more time to rebound from the losses it’s suffered over the last few months.

You could also consider a side hustle to generate additional cash. There are many you can do from home if you’re concerned about being exposed to others. Consider virtual assisting, online tutoring, or even creating your own course or blog. There are side hustles that don’t require a lot of work on your part either, like renting out an extra property or a spare parking space. If you do start a side business, you must remember to set aside taxes on your own to pay the IRS. Have a designated savings account where you can keep these funds.

The major downside of planning to work longer is that you can’t guarantee you’ll be able to. An injury or illness could force you to retire sooner than you’d expected. Even if you remain healthy, a family member may not, and you could end up staying home to care for them. Have a backup plan for what you would do in one of these scenarios so you’re not caught off guard if it does happen.

Cutting your expenses both now and in retirement can also help stretch your savings further. Eliminating unnecessary purchases today can enable you to put more cash toward retirement — though, admittedly, in the present climate, saving for retirement might not be possible if you’re still struggling to pay your bills. Removing unnecessary expenses, like travel, in your retirement budget can also reduce your costs.

You could also consider delaying Social Security if you believe you’ll live a longer life. Every month you delay benefits increases your check until you reach your maximum benefit at 70. You may not be able to afford to delay benefits that long, but every little bit helps. Once you start claiming, your larger Social Security checks will go further, so you can rely less upon your personal savings.

There aren’t any easy solutions for those who are dangerously far behind on retirement savings. But trying some of the tips above is better than allowing your money to run out after a few years. Do what you can and check in with yourself at least once per year to see if there are any additional changes you can make to reach your savings goals.

Walmart plans to temporarily close a store in Mobile to disinfect and restock following COVID-19 cases among staff there.

The Walmart on 5245 Rangeline Service Road S will close at 4 p.m. Saturday and reopen at 7 a.m. Monday.

“We understand the role we play in providing our customers with food, medicine and other essential items during this time. We also understand (Mobile) has been hit especially hard by COVID-19,” Walmart spokesman Phillip Keene said in a press release.

“We are not able to provide information about those impacted for privacy reasons,” he added.

Keene said it is impossible to know how anyone at the store would have contracted the virus. He said Walmart is taking social distancing measures such as providing face masks and gloves to employees, erecting plexiglass shields at registers and creating one-way shopping aisles.

“Everything we’re doing is for the well-being of our associates and customers, and in consideration of guidance by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and health experts. When the store reopens on Monday, we will continue to conduct associate health screens and temperature checks, and all associates will be provided with facemasks and gloves,” he said.

Mobile County had 8,466 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Saturday, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health.

At that time, Friend-Daniel insinuated the names were already in the process of being changed, a process that would continue.

“While this approach to product naming may have been rooted in a lighthearted attempt at inclusiveness, we recognize that it may now have the opposite effect — one that is contrary to the welcoming, rewarding customer experience we strive to create every day,” she said in a statement to CNN.

“Packaging for a number of the products has already been changed, but there’s a small number of products in which the packaging is still going through the process,” Friend-Daniel added.

That doesn’t seem to be the case now. And the move has particularly been praised by pundits on the right.

The problem, according to the petition and those on its side, is that this kind of packaging exoticizes other cultures — presenting “Joe” as the norm and Ming, San Joe, José, and so on, as falling outside of that realm.

In its most recent statement, Trader Joe’s asserts that customer feedback revealed its clientele is unbothered by this “fun” approach to product marketing.

“Recently we have heard from many customers reaffirming that these name variations are largely viewed in exactly the way they were intended — as an attempt to have fun with our product marketing,” the statement said. “We continue our ongoing evaluation, and those products that resonate with our customers and sell well will remain on our shelves.”

Wide latitude

TAMPA, Fla. — A Tampa teenager has been arrested in a massive Twitter hack of prominent politicians, celebrities and technology moguls that netted more than $100,000 in Bitcoin. 

Graham Ivan Clark, 17, was arrested Friday in Tampa, where the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office will prosecute him as adult. 

Clark appeared in court Saturday. He is being held without bail.

He faces 30 felony charges, according to a news release. Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, U.K., and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, were charged in California federal court.

In one of the most high-profile security breaches in recent years, hackers sent out bogus tweets on July 15 from the accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Celebrities Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, were also hacked.

The tweets offered to send $2,000 for every $1,000 sent to an anonymous Bitcoin address.

The Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office will prosecute Graham Ivan Clark as adult. (Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office)

“There is a false belief within the criminal hacker community that attacks like the Twitter hack can be perpetrated anonymously and without consequence,” U.S. Attorney David L. Anderson for the Northern District of California said in a news release. “Today’s charging announcement demonstrates that the elation of nefarious hacking into a secure environment for fun or profit will be short-lived.”

Although the case against the teen was also investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice, Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren explained that his office is prosecuting Clark in Florida state court because Florida law allows minors to be charged as adults in financial fraud cases such as this when appropriate. He added that Clark was the leader of the hacking scam.

“This defendant lives here in Tampa, he committed the crime here, and he’ll be prosecuted here,” Warren said.

Security experts were not surprised that the alleged mastermind of the hack is a 17-year-old, given the relative amateur nature both of the operation and the hackers’ willingness afterward to discuss the hack with reporters online.

“I think this is a great case study showing how technology democratizes the ability to commit serious criminal acts,” said Jake Williams, founder of the cybersecurity firm Rendition Infosec. “I’m not terribly surprised that at least one of the suspects is a minor. There wasn’t a ton of development that went into this attack.”

Williams said the hackers were “extremely sloppy” in how they moved the Bitcoin around.

He also said he was conflicted about whether Clark should be charged as an adult.

“He definitely deserves to pay (for jumping on the opportunity) but potentially serving decades in prison doesn’t seem like justice in this case,” William said.

Twitter previously said hackers used the phone to fool the social media company’s employees into giving them access. It said hackers targeted “a small number of employees through a phone spear-phishing attack.”

“This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems,” the company tweeted.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

North American distributors have some beef with the meat industry. On Friday, JBS Food Canada, ULC recalled over 38,000 pounds of beef products after they failed to be re-inspected when entering the United States. And turning up the heat doesn’t seem to be the solution here.

The USDA labeled the affected products under a Class I recall, which means the products can cause “a health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death,” according to the organization’s official announcement.

This recall concerns 80-pound boxes of 10-pound ground meat packages that were sent to distributors in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina before being sent to retail locations. Thus far, there are no reported cases of adverse effects from related meat consumption in these areas. However, the USDA recommends proceeding with caution and throwing out any products that could potentially be contaminated.

And, as though 2020 could not be a more anxiety-inducing year, ground beef contamination has been all too common lately. In June, Walmart had to recall 40,000 pounds of its grass-fed beef due to potential e-coil contamination. Some of your chicken products might not be safe, either. At least, the processed form. Also, later in June, the USDA recalled almost 60,000 pounds of Pilgrims chicken nuggets.

Fortunately, though, there are many filling vegetarian meal ideas and vegan substitutions that won’t leave you missing the meat for your summertime barbecues. If you need a quick and easy option, these store-bought vegetarian options should satisfy any craving.

Before you go, check out all of the cloth face masks available online in the gallery below:

Mega-cap technology stocks have driven the Nasdaq and S&P 500 higher while, like a shiny veneer, they’ve masked broader stock market weakness.

But there’s reason to believe that the covering may soon come off as mega-caps turn into a liability for the broader market.

Bitcoin (BTC) futures trading has been on a high since July 21 with both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Bakkt seeing sizeable increases in volume and open interest for their contracts. This resurgence in BTC futures comes as the spot market value of the largest crypto by market capitalization reached a new 2020 high.

Two months on from the May 2020 halving event, BTC has begun to show signs of the anticipated bullish advance. Bitcoin usually sets a new all-time high in the year following a block reward subsidy decrease, with BTC optimists stating the trend will continue.

Amid the current positive price action for Bitcoin, bullish sentiment appears to be gathering steam in the BTC futures market. Long positions currently outnumber shorts by almost 9-to-1, which means that any significant downward retracement could see a cascade of liquidations on optimistic bets, especially for traders with overleveraged longs. Back in mid-March 2020, the market panic caused by the COVID-19 pandemic saw Bitcoin fall to $3,800. This drop caused a cascade of forced liquidations, especially on derivatives exchanges like BitMEX.

Bitcoin’s price reaches new 2020 high

The price surge for BTC comes amid a raft of positive news for the crypto space with the United States Office of the Comptroller of the Currency allowing national banks to offer cryptocurrency custody services. Major economies have also been moving toward stimulus packages to alleviate the disruptions occasioned by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. EU leaders have already approved a $2-trillion spending plan with almost half of the earmarked sum geared to support economies hardest-hit by COVID-19. In the U.S., lawmakers have been working on another round of stimulus payments, which could go as high as $3 trillion.

With the U.S. Federal Reserve printing more money in one month than in the last 200 years, investors appear to be keen on hedging against the attendant risk of currency debasement. This sentiment appears to be providing significant tailwinds for haven assets like BTC and gold. Bitcoin’s rise to a new 2020 high also coincided with gold setting a new price record per ounce. Indeed, the precious metal is close to crossing the $2,000 landmark, with silver also at its highest level in over seven years.

CME BTC futures interest sets new all-time high

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Bitcoin futures open interest has been on the rise in tandem with the gains seen in the spot market. According to data from crypto derivatives analytics platform Skew, CME BTC futures open interest is at an all-time high of $740M.

A week after “Black Thursday,” CME Bitcoin futures open interest almost fell to their lowest level in three months. However, as spot price recovered in the weeks that followed, so too did the open interest in CME’s cash-settled BTC futures contract until the May halving. With the block reward subsidy event not triggering any immediate price gains, OI took a significant dip once again. At the time, retail crypto derivatives traders suffered liquidations to the tune of about $1.3 billion, as the BTC price saw a retrace from $10,000 to the $8,600 support level.

It is perhaps interesting to note that while OI is on the rise, trading volume has cooled off significantly over the last few days of July. The same trend can be observed for Bakkt, with open interest at an all-time high of $22 million, but trading volume has been on a downward slide for both its cash and physically settled futures contracts.

Indeed, the rising OI in Bitcoin futures is representative of the trend seen in the crypto derivatives arena as a whole. According to its Q2 2020 report, market analytics platform TokenInsight revealed that marketwide cryptocurrency derivatives OI rose from $2.62 billion to $5.53 billion in the second quarter of 2020. Typically, high OI and low volume point toward more exposure-driven activity than actual trading. Often, this scenario indicates that traders are looking to short Bitcoin’s price.

However, according to data from on-chain analytics platform Datamish.com, the ratio of percent longs to short is almost at its highest level in 2020. This trend suggests that traders expect that Bitcoin still has room for more upside. Joe DiPasquale, the CEO of crypto hedge fund BitBull Capital, told Cointelegraph that the high OI points toward traders expecting an impending uptick in volatility:

“At this time, Bitcoin is at a critical level. If it holds above $11,000 for a week or so, we can expect further appreciation. However, it will only be around $15K that we can expect actual retail FOMO and the possibility of a parabolic advance.”

For Adam Todd, the CEO of crypto derivatives exchange Digitex Futures, the rising OI means more money flowing into the Bitcoin futures market. In a conversation with Cointelegraph, Todd stated: “Generally, a rise in open interest means that the price will also rise as new money comes into the market.” Rising open interest amid declining volume also points to traders electing to adopt longer holding periods. With Bitcoin price volatility dropping to all-time lows before this current surge, short-term funds would have become unprofitable.

Crypto derivatives trading in numbers: First half of 2020

The rising OI for CME and Bakkt is one of the many indications of increasing institutional activity in Bitcoin and crypto in general. Grayscale, the largest cryptocurrency hedge fund, has recently seen its total assets under management top the $5-billion mark.

Indeed, Grayscale’s AUM grew by about $500 million in barely a week to add to the over $1.4-billion surge recorded in the first half of 2020. While the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust is still the overwhelmingly dominant product in the company’s catalog, Litecoin (LTC) shares have grown over the past month, which indicates some institutional appetite for the seventh-largest crypto by market capitalization. The surge in Litecoin share ownership coincided with LTC keeping up with Bitcoin’s price gains even as other altcoins saw red. Commenting on the prospects of greater institutional involvement in Bitcoin, Todd remarked:

“I think that Bitcoin’s recent breakout, especially at a time when traditional markets are so uncertain, will certainly cause more institutional investors to take a second, third or even fourth look at adding BTC to their portfolios. However, institutions will likely wait for a price correction, unlike retail investors they are not going to chase a rally.”

Bitcoin options OI also on the rise

Apart from futures, the OI for Bitcoin options has also seen a similar increase. Of the $2.2 billion in total open interest for BTC options, Deribit accounts for $1.79 billion, which amounts to an 80% dominance of the market. Again, as is the case with the futures arena, the rising OI for BTC options is happening alongside a decline in trading volume. Apart from dominating the Bitcoin options OI, Deribit also controls over 90% of the market’s trading volume, up from the 60% dominance achieved in Q2 2020.

Data from Skew shows the Bitcoin options put/call ratio, or PCR, is beginning to climb steadily. A rising PCR typically indicates bullish sentiments, and at 0.63, traders appear to be expecting more upside for BTC. However, when PCR begins to approach the 1.0 mark, a contrarian interpretation usually forms for the indicator, as high PCR values usually front-run the emergence of bearish sentiments as seen in May before the halving event. Leading up to the 2020 halving, the Bitcoin options PCR rose to 0.81, its highest level in 2020. A few days later, BTC experienced a retrace from $10,000 to the $8,600 price level.

A similar situation occurred the last time the BTC options PCR nearly reached 1.0, which was in late June 2019. Bitcoin went on a downward slide for the second half of 2019, ending the year at $7,300. If the trend holds, then the current upward price action could be interrupted by a significant pullback. According to DiPasquale, such a retrace is to be expected:

“Nearly all quick surges are followed by pullbacks, which are healthy for market action since profit-taking allows investors/traders to take breaks, and new capital can enter the market as floors are established. At the moment, the zone between $10,000 and $10,500 presents a solid support zone for any pullbacks.”

The 106,000 BTC (~$1.2 billion) in Bitcoin futures and options that expired on July 31 might also have some impact on the price action in Q3 2020. For Bitcoin options, over $1.4 billion in aggregate open interest is still available to trade in August and September.

With Bitcoin breaking from its sideways accumulation, crypto derivatives trading might see a resurgence in Q3 2020. According to the TokenInsight report, cryptocurrency derivatives trading topped $2 trillion for the second quarter in a row, resulting in “a year-on-year increase of 165.56% from the second quarter of 2019.”

With $2.159 trillion in volume, crypto derivatives accounted for about 27.4% of the total cryptocurrency trading market, as reported by TokenInsight. Despite the lull in price action for about half of the period, the crypto derivatives niche still saw a marginal increase while spot volume fell 18%.

Not everyone can get together these days, so Fox News is holding a series of virtual car shows where you can share and discuss your cool cars, trucks and motorcycles with the rest of the Fox News Autos audience.

They’re still humming along.

Arnold Schwartzenegger had his H1 converted to electric drive.
(BG004/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

General Motors is taking the HUMMER brand into the future with the upcoming electric GMC HUMMER EV, but there are still plenty of classic models on the road.

FOX NEWS AUTOS INVESTIGATES: HAT IS THE GMC HUMMER EV’S “CRAB” MODE?

We’ve posted a few of our favorites submitted to this week’s Fox News Virtual Auto Show below so you can chat about them in the comments. Don’t forget to check out more of the submissions on Twitter and add your own:

(NOTE: This is an independent FoxNews.com online production based on a timely event and in no way a collaboration with General Motors.)