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| Benefit Briefs |
| Financial Wellness Not Just a Benefit for Employees |
| Helping employees attain financial wellness is
not just another part of the benefits program—it can be healthy for a company’s
bottom line. The point of financial wellness is it helps reduce financial
stress, Matt Iverson, founder of Boulevard R, a retirement plan services
provider, said in a recent webinar. Employees who are stressed financially tend
to have higher health care expenses—about $300 per employee per year stemming
from anxiety, insomnia, headaches and depression, Iverson says. In addition,
when employees cannot afford to retire, there is a real cost to the firm,
Iverson says. |
| Companies and workers are increasingly receptive
to 401(k) Roth features as a retirement savings vehicle. In addition, more U.S.
employers are adding Roth 401(k) features than ever before and participation is
also on the rise. Aon Hewitt’s research finds half of all companies now offer a
Roth account, nearly five times the percentage that did so in 2007 (11%). Aon
Hewitt also found in 2013, 11% of workers saved to a Roth account when it was
available in the plan, which is up from 8% in 2011. |
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| Buyer's Market |
| BlackRock Adds Income Projection to Investment Offering |
| BlackRock, Inc. has expanded its proprietary
CoRI retirement suite with new income projection and portfolio allocation
analysis tools. This expansion enhances the CoRI online portal with a new
feature that helps pre-retirees identify savings and investment strategies that
can help them plan for income goals in retirement. The firm says the new
functionality should allow the CoRI suite to help investors understand and take
action to address the critical relationship between accumulated savings and
lifetime income in retirement. |
| TSA Consulting Group, Inc., a provider of 403(b)
and 457(b) retirement plan administration services, has acquired Security
Financial Resources, Inc.’s 403(b) Plan Solutions Program. Under the terms of
an all-cash purchase agreement, TSA Consulting Group acquired the 403(b) Plan
Solutions Program effective April 10. The deal adds more than 2,000 public
school districts and colleges in 47 states to TSA’s Compliance Edge program. |
| Benz Offers Insights About Effective Benefit Communications |
| Benz Communications will present a series of
free webinars for plan sponsors about the topic of making employee benefits
communications more effective. The webinars are intended to give plan sponsors
a roadmap for investing in their employee benefits communication, according to
Jennifer Benz, CEO of the San Francisco-based firm. |
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| Industry Voices |
| Industry Voice: Major Risks Facing DB Plans Today |
| The current, relatively well-funded status of defined
benefit (DB) plans presents an opportunity to lower the risk level. It’s
important to recognize that the risks involved cover a full spectrum that
extends well beyond the problems that result from underfunding. This article
explains the six major types of risk that plan sponsors face. |
|
| Market Mirror |
| Yesterday, the Dow finished 87.28 points
(0.53%) higher at 16,448.74, the NASDAQ slipped 1.16 points (0.03%) to
4,074.40, and the S&P 500 increased 6.03 points (0.32%) to 1,869.43. The
Russell 2000 fell 5.97 points (0.53%) to 1,117.06, and the Wilshire 5000 was up
21.45 points (0.11%) at 19,784.70.
On the NYSE, 3.2 billion shares traded,
with a slight lead for advancers. On the NASDAQ, 2.7 billion shares changed
hands, with 1.7 declining issues for every advancing issue.
The price of the 10-year Treasury note was down 11/32,
bringing its yield up to 2.706%. The price of the 30-year Treasury bond
decreased 30/32, increasing its yield to 3.495%.
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| Financial Sense |
| There is a positive link between active
investment management and high endowment returns in equity asset classes. The
paper, “Does Active Management Benefit Endowment Returns? An Analysis of the
NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments (NCSE) Data,” examines the active
management versus passive management debate and concludes that endowments with
more active asset management see higher returns net of fees from U.S. equity
allocations. The analysis also finds that endowments with a designated chief
investment officer or outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) are better
able to earn incremental positive returns from active management than those
without. |
| Smart Beta Addresses Many Investing Goals |
| Investors in North America and Europe are making
use of smart beta indexes in diverse ways, according to a survey from global
asset manager Russell Investments. Smart Beta: A Deeper Look at Asset Owner
Perceptions finds among those investors managing more than $10 billion (35% of
those surveyed), smart beta indexes are being sought more for their investment
utility—helping to achieve broader portfolio objectives such as risk reduction
and return enhancement—rather than for basic cost savings. And across North
America and Europe, asset owners’ use of smart beta indexes and smart beta
index-based investment strategies is diverse, from use as market benchmarks to
tools to control unwanted exposures or to emphasize certain investment factors
in global multi-asset portfolios. |
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| Small Talk |
| ON
THIS DATE: In
1854, by an act of the Pennsylvania
legislature, Ashmun Institute, the first college founded solely for
African-American students, was officially chartered. In 1945, the U.S. Seventh Army’s 45th Infantry Division liberated
Dachau, the first concentration camp established by Germany’s Nazi regime. In 1968, Hair premiered on Broadway. In 1992,
the Rodney King trial verdict was announced, sparking three days of rioting in
Los Angeles. In 2004, the National
World War II Memorial opened in Washington, D.C. In 2011, Great Britain’s Prince William married his girlfriend
Catherine Elizabeth “Kate” Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London.
TUESDAY
TRIVIA: Dr. Seuss’ full name is Theodor Seuss (pronounced
like voice, but with a ‘z’—‘zoice’) Geisel.
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| TRIVIAL PURSUITS:
What did Dr. Seuss do before writing children’s books? |
| Share the good news with a friend! Pass the Dash along – and tell your
friends/associates they can sign up for their own copy. |
| News from PLANSPONSOR.com
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