| Economic Events | THE ECONOMIC WEEK AHEAD: Tomorrow,
the Census Bureau will report about construction spending for July, and Wednesday, it will report about factory
orders for July. Thursday, the Labor
Department will issue its initial claims report. Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will reveal the unemployment
rate for August. | | Market Mirror | Friday, the
Dow was down 11.76 points (0.07%) to 16,643.01, the NASDAQ closed 15.62 points
(0.32%) higher at 4,828.32, and the S&P 500 slipped 1.89 points (0.10%) to
1,985.77. The Russell 2000 increased 9.32 points (0.81%) to 1,162.92, and the
Wilshire 5000 was up 46.81 points (0.22%) at 20,968.31.
On the NYSE,
3.2 billion shares traded, and on the NASDAQ, nearly 2.8 billion shares changed
hands, with advancing issues outnumbering declining issues nearly 2 to 1 on
both exchanges.
The price of
the 10-year Treasury note slipped 1/32, increasing its yield to 2.187%. The
price of the 30-year Treasury bond was up 8/32, bringing its yield down to
2.914%.
WEEK’S
WORTH: For the week ending August 28, the Dow gained
1.11%, the NASDAQ climbed 2.60%, and the S&P 500 increased 0.74%. The
Russell 2000 was up 0.53%, and the Wilshire 5000 finished 0.95% higher.
| | Compliance | Understanding the IRS Employee Plans Compliance Unit | The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Employee
Plans Compliance Unit (EPCU) focuses on identifying potential areas of
non-compliance and educating plan sponsors. During a webcast Craig Chomyok,
manager of the Employee Plans Compliance Unit at the IRS Office of Employee Plans
in Chicago, and one of his colleagues discussed how the EPCU works and how
compliance checks have helped plan sponsors.Read more > | Webcast to Cover Updates to Employee Plans Program | The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will hold a
webcast in September to discuss updates to its employee plans programs,
including new pre-approved plans.Read more > | | From the Magazine | How to Avoid Using the Wrong Definition of Compensation | Many employers have a significant number of pay
codes, used for overtime or time-off calculations; this makes it more
challenging to ensure all are programmed correctly to calculate deferrals, says
Jared Rosen, a principal in the audit and accounting group of Ellin &
Tucker in Baltimore. “This is the primary compliance issue we see in our plan
audits,” he says.Read more > | | Investing | 401(k) Participants React Visibly to Market Dip | Data from the Aon Hewitt 401(k) Index, which
tracks the investment activity of 1.5 million 401(k) investors, shows trading
in 401(k) accounts spiked with recent market swings. On Friday August 21,
according to Aon Hewitt, trading activity among retirement plan participants
was twice the normal level. Activity on the following Monday was seven times
the norm, making for “one of the highest trading days on record,” Aon Hewitt
notes.Read more > | | Small Talk | ON THIS DATE: In
1888, serial kil.ler Jack the
Rip.per claimed his first victim in London. In 1897, Thomas Edison received a patent for his movie camera, the
Kinetograph. In 1920, the first news
program to be broadcast on radio was aired on station 8MK in Detroit, Michigan.
In 1920, John Lloyd Wright was
issued a patent for “Toy-Cabin Construction,” also known as Lincoln
Logs. (U.S. patent 1,351,086). In 1959,
Brooklyn Dodgers left-handed pitcher Sandy Koufax struck out 18 batters,
setting a new National League record for most strikeouts in a single game. In 1965, the Department of Housing and
Urban Development was created by the U.S. House of Representatives and the
Senate. In 1994, a cease-fire was
declared by the Irish Republican Army after 25 years of bloo.dshed in Northern
Ireland. In 1994, Russia officially
ended its military presence in the former East Germany and the Baltics after a
half-century. | SURVEY SAYS: Last week, I asked NewsDash readers, “How
panicked did you feel during the dramatic slump, and did you communicate with
participants to try to calm their fears?” More than 2% of responding readers
indicated they felt very panicked, while three in 10 (31.7%) felt somewhat
panicked, and nearly two-thirds (65.8%) said they didn’t feel panicked at all. The
majority of respondents (82.9%) did not communicate with retirement plan
participants to try to calm their fears, and 17.1% reported that they did. In
verbatim comments, several readers noted that it wasn’t panic they felt, but
some other slightly less negative emotion. There were readers who gave their
advice for handling steep market dives, but many said they did not hear from
any panicked retirement plan participants. Editor’s
Choice goes to the reader who said: “For
those who can’t stand rollercoasters—don’t look at your account balance!” That was my strategy. Thank you to everyone who
participated in the survey!Read more > | Share the good news with a friend! Pass the Dash along – and tell your
friends/associates they can sign up for their own copy.Read more > |
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