Since late last year, retirement savers have received some delightful news thanks to rising interest rates. Thanks to the Federal Reserve Board’s interest rate hike and anticipation of President-elect Trump’s pro-growth, tax-cutting, big-spending policy agenda, the cost of retirement income has fallen 14 percent, according to BlackRock’s CoRI (Cost of Retirement Income) index.

That means financial markets are saying the era of financial repression is coming to an end. BlackRock’s CoRI index tries to estimate what it costs an individual to purchase, say $1 dollar of retirement income. The indexes are age-based indexes that BlackRock says are designed to enable Americans to “estimate their retirement readiness and plan for future income.”

Put another way, the indexes are designed to help people do a quick calculation that converts their assets into income. In its release, BlackRock says that higher interest rates, coupled with the appreciation in equity prices over the last two months, mean that a 55-year-old may be on track for 18 percent more retirement income.

Of course, a lot of things could change for the better -- and the worse. The New Normal is over, according to Loomis Sayles vice chairman Dan Fuss, but no one yet knows what type of economic regime will replace it.

Three years ago, Fuss told advisors at an Investment Management Consultants conference to buy equities and go to church. Coming from one of the best bond fund managers in a generation, his omission of fixed-income investments was a significant statement. While Fuss still advocates equities, he now says investors should have a mix of intermediate-grade corporate and high-yield bonds as well as a short-term liquidity reserve.

As the economic regime changes, uncertainty creates opportunities. It can also create pitfalls. Higher interest rates mean more income for fixed-income investors, but if they are in the wrong type of bonds they could suffer loss of principal. The rise in interest rates erased a lot of wealth over the last two months.

James Meyers, director of fixed-income product strategy at PowerShares Invesco, notes that the yield curve is steepening in the two- to 10-year range, where opportunities present themselves in investment grade, high-yield and emerging-market bonds, as well as bank loans and preferred stocks. If the U.S. economy improves over the next year, spreads between these vehicles and Treasurys could tighten, protecting much of their principal.

The changing economic regime caused problems for certain classes of equities that became bond substitutes in the era of near-zero interest rates. Dividend-paying stock are not the darlings they once were, as they face increased competition from bonds while equity investors suddenly anticipate more growth.

For advisors it’s going to be a major challenge as waves of baby boomers who delayed retirement for the last five years will start to pull the trigger.