Tips on how best to serve clients with target-date funds were the focus of a March 23 session at the 2015 NAPA 401(k) Summit.PIMCO Executive Vice President and National Retirement Sales Manager Sean... Read More
Advertisement
Target Date Funds
BY Rocco DiBruno | 3/18/2015
In 1985, Back to the Future, starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, was a box office hit. Fox’s character, Marty McFly, went back in time to 1955 when his parents were in high school,... Read More
BY Michael Bushnell | 3/2/2015
When Callan Associates surveyed plan sponsors in early 2014, more than a third of the respondents said they would make changes to their target date funds during the coming year. The firm’s just... Read More
BY NAPA Net Staff | 1/23/2015
While it’s not always true, what happens in the large market usually migrates down market. So, according to a recently released study by Callan Associates of nearly 150 larger plans (most of... Read More
BY NAPA Net Staff | 12/3/2014
By 2019, 88% of all new contributions will go to target-date funds, according to a recent report from Cerulli (free registration required). The report also predicts that the market share of custom... Read More
BY Fred Barstein | 11/26/2014
Cerulli is predicting that TDFs, which seem to dominate DC plans today, will garner as much as 90% of new contributions by 2019. That’s good news for firms with a viable TDF strategy, but... Read More
BY Jerry Bramlett | 11/20/2014
“Every sweet hath its sour, every good its bad,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his essay, “Compensation.” So it seems to be the case with the two main asset allocation... Read More
BY Jerry Bramlett | 10/21/2014
A recent Fidelity study found that in the 20 to 30 age group, 44% of all DC participants are cashing out after leaving employment. If financial hardships and subsequent cash outs from rollovers into... Read More
BY Nevin E. Adams, JD | 10/11/2014
Before target-date funds were “cool” (or widely available), I had steered my mother toward an asset-allocation fund as a good place to invest her retirement plan rollover balance. The... Read More
BY Jerry Bramlett | 9/29/2014
In a MarketWatch post, “The No. 1 Flaw in America’s Biggest 401(k) Plans,” author Paul Merriman makes three observations concerning the investment lineups of the 100 largest... Read More
BY Jerry Bramlett | 9/23/2014
The conventional wisdom — as is evident from the mainstream glide paths imbedded in the most popular target date funds (TDFs) — is that DC investors should be invested in... Read More
BY Fred Barstein | 9/9/2014
When TDFs first came out, some advisors saw them as a threat — especially when the record keeper only offered one option, usually their own. For advisors who saw their value primarily in... Read More
BY Fred Barstein | 9/5/2014
In a further sign of the difficulties that ETFs are having trying to crack the 401(k) market, BlackRock’s iShares division is shutting down its exchange-traded TDF. The fund had... Read More
BY John Iekel | 8/8/2014
Many of the enhancements touted for defined contribution plan design are said to make them operate more like defined benefit plans — but does that apply to target-date fund (TDF) designs? A... Read More
BY John Iekel | 7/16/2014
Target date funds are growing and likely to comprise a larger percentage of 401(k) assets, says Paladin Registry, an independent educational resource for investors. Paladin cites statistics... Read More
BY John Ortman | 7/11/2014
Since the SEC reopened the comment period on its target date fund proposal in April, the commission has received 29 comment letters generally favoring appropriately tailored enhanced disclosure... Read More
BY Fred Barstein | 7/7/2014
Passive strategies continue to dominate not only the investing world but also the TDF market, driving prices down and leading to better performance, according to a recent Morningstar report. The... Read More
BY Ronald J. Triche | 7/2/2014
On July 2, 2014, the NAPA Government Affairs Committee submitted a comment letter to the DOL in response to its request for comments regarding a proposed rulemaking on target date fund disclosures.... Read More
BY John Ortman | 6/13/2014
Despite some shared alignments in design and principles, TDFs are anything but uniform in their philosophies regarding glide path, asset allocation mix and even the application of the target date... Read More
BY Jerry Bramlett | 5/22/2014
A recent study conducted by Financial Engines and Aon Hewitt, “Help in Defined Contribution Plans: 2006 Through 2012,” explores the impact of using “help.” The study, which was noted in a May 20 NAPA... Read More
BY John Iekel | 5/21/2014
A recent study by Financial Engines and Aon Hewitt says that target date funds work best if a plan participant invests all or nearly all of their retirement assets in them. Barrons also weighs in on... Read More
BY Fred Barstein | 5/20/2014
While TDFs have less assets than target risk funds (TRFs), they grew at a faster clip in the first quarter of this year, gaining 5% or $30 billion. TRFs lost $1.5 billion over that same period.... Read More
BY Fred Barstein | 5/19/2014
TDFs are all the rage these days. But did you know that target risk funds (TRFs) have more assets? According to a Q1 2014 report by Ibbotson, a Morningstar subsidiary, TRFs have $722 billion of AUM.... Read More
BY Fred Barstein | 5/16/2014
In a far-reaching white paper, BlackRock takes on the question of which is better: “to” or “through” TDFs. With the growing popularity and nearly ubiquitous presence of TDFs in DC plans, the question... Read More
BY Jerry Bramlett | 5/7/2014
A recent Hewitt EnnisKnupp (HEK) blog post, “A Primer on Custom Target Date Funds,” provides an excellent short overview on custom target date funds (CTDFs). The post focuses on defining what a CTDF... Read More
Recent Comments