Fiduciary News

Welcome to Member News! This is the only group available to basic members. You’ll want to visit this group often to discover new benefits or critical “How-To” Answers. In fact, if you’ve got a question about the site, please ask it here. I’m sure you’re not the only one with the question and sharing it here will allow others to benefit from…[Read more]

Should adolescent “Stock Market Challenge” games be banned from schools? How can someone learn the important lessons of investing for a lifetime if they’re rewarded for playing a short-term trading game? Are there better ways to simulate long-term investing in a gamified form?
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What’s your most frustrating story when it comes to 401k employee education? If you’re teaching, tell us the one about the time you thought you nailed the presentation only to find out the audience later failed to act per the lesson. If you’re taking the point of view of the audience, tell us about the time the presenter glossed over – or even ou…[Read more]

Does your 401k plan measure retirement readiness of participants and, if so, how do you measure it? Despite all the noise and rancor about fees and annual investment performance, this is the bottom-line: Are the employees on the right path to be ready to retire? The article contains some thoughts on measuring retirement readiness. What is your…[Read more]

What’s the best way to measure the success of a 401k plan? How we pick 401k benchmarks have changed over the years. What guidelines to select benchmarks do you use today that you didn’t use 10-15 years ago? Can’t remember that far back? Here’s an article highlighted how those guidelines have changed. What do you think?
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How much do retirement savers need to accumulate? What do you think? Is $1,000,000 the number people should be aiming for to live a comfortable #retirement? If not, what are the more important variables? #fiduciary #401k #IRA
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Are investors who fail to learn from history doomed to repeat it? We hear millennials prefer to buy annuities than to save in a 401k or IRA and invest directly (and at a lesser cost) in the stock market. Well, this is bad news and good news. The bad news is that those that don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it. How many baby b…[Read more]

After decades of relying on “risk tolerance” questionnaires, how do you convince 401k plan sponsors and investors that they’re more dangerous than useful? What horror stories can you share? As the attached link explains, since as early as 1999, it’s been widely known “risk tolerance” questionnaires are, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, misl…[Read more]

How do we stop the BHB myth that claims asset allocation accounts for 93% of investment performance? It’s been a while since major financial service providers have misquoted the infamous Brinson-Hood-Beebower research papers from the late 1980s/early 1990s. We still, however, see individual practitioners and even the some journalists repeating t…[Read more]

Why do you think Target Risk Funds contain less fiduciary liability concerns for 401k plan sponsors than Target Date Funds? Target Date Funds have exploded in terms of popularity. It’s not that they’re proven in any sense of the word. In fact, the economic crash of 2008/2009 exposed their true nature and the potential liability they pose. The…[Read more]

Cross Trading Can Harm Investment Performance. Here’s an article that explains it. Were you aware of it and the implications?
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What’s the best way to improve 401k participant fee disclosure? While it may be correct that it does more harm than good, it’s not going away. Our only hope is to make it better.How do you see that happening? Is there something more important than fees to disclose to 401k plan participants?
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When it comes to retirement plans, what is more important than fees? As David Huntley, co-editor of the 401k Averages Book explains in the attached article, fees are the be-all and end-all when it comes to value. The DOL apparently shares this opinion. In your mind, what’s more important than fees?
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