Saw something on CNBC about these products. Hadn't heard of them before.

Here is a link to Fidelity's offerings.

It combines date targeted asset allocation funds with an inflation adjusted monthly payout schedule. For example, you pick the years for your life expectancy, the amount you want to put in, and it calculates the expected monthly payout. Payment rates increase over time to keep up with inflation. The fund balance is designed to go to zero at the target date.

These are not annuities, and the payments are not guaranteed. Payments will fluctuate based on the performance of the underlying stock and bond assets.

Fees are very reasonable, and there is no front end load. For example, the Fidelity Income Replacement 2032 begins with a 5.63% payout, after a 0.63% expense ratio. Since this is basically a fund of funds, that is the aggregate pass through expense ratio of all the underlying funds. I believe that is lower than if you invested individually in the underlying funds.

Anybody else looked into these products.

looks like a new spin on an annuity. However you are not guaranteed a set payment (it fluctuates with the value of the funds it owns) and you still end up with zero at the end of the term.

Not sure, and an idea not supported by research, but if the balance goes to zero, then the "payout" includes some of your initially invested principal.

5.63% payout is not a rate of return....do they list one?

The only thing that is new here is the mechanics of managing investments to payout over your lifetime, adjusted for inflation. It would be pretty difficult to handle these mechanics yourself.

As to the return, you would have to look at the underlying funds, which are all Fidelity funds. What struck me was the expense ratio, which seemed pretty low for this kind of management.

Indeed, the payout does include principal. That is the whole point, to distribute your assets over your expected lifetime, adjusting for both inflation and performance of the underlying funds. You assume a certain amount of risk. With an annuity, you are selling that risk to an insurance company at a very substantial premium. If you time horizon is more than 10 years, this approach seems pretty reasonable.