| Products, Deals and People | Mercer’s participant website, Mercer
BenefitsCentral, now allows clients to “initiate, manage, and commence their
pension plan benefit completely online.” The new capabilities are targeted at
large market defined benefit (DB) plans, Mercer says, providing participants
with an alternative approach to joining the pension plan and
managing/understanding benefit payments.Read more > | Whitepaper Offers Guide for Distribution Success | A new whitepaper by Fred Reish, an Employee
Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) attorney with Drinker, Biddle &
Reath, argues participant education and sponsors’ fiduciary knowledge are both
critical to plan distribution success. The whitepaper, “Empowering Participants
– Plan Distributions and the Plan Sponsor,” is being released this week in
collaboration with Empower Retirement. In the publication, Reish guides plan
sponsors through the key issues that participants face when comparing and
choosing retirement distribution options, with a particular focus on regulatory
activity related to educating participants about various options.Read more > | Mary Witherow joins Voya Financial as senior
vice president for relationship management in the large corporate market. She
will focus on providing Voya’s recordkeeping services to large
employer-sponsored 401(k) defined contribution and benefit plans.Read more > | An Alternative When Financial Wellness Isn’t in the Budget | Financial Finesse founder and CEO Liz Davidson
has written a new book, and her company is offering a service to help small
employers use it as an employee financial wellness program tool. Believing the book
lays a good foundation for financial wellness, Davidson decided to incorporate
it into the services Financial Finesse offers employees. “We realize smaller
employers are budget-constrained, so those who purchase the book for employees
and contact us will receive consulting about how to leverage the chapters in
the book into full financial wellness program material.”Read more > | | Sponsored message from SEI | 5 Questions Every Plan Sponsor Should Ask About Retirement Income With a growing percentage of the workforce reporting insufficient retirement savings, DC plan sponsors are feeling the pressure to provide innovative solutions to better prepare participants for retirement.Read more > | | Market Mirror | Early signs
of softness in holiday spending sent retail stocks lower on the first day of
trading after the Thanksgiving holiday, according to the Associated Press. The
Dow lost 78.57 points (0.44%) to finish at 17,719.92, the NASDAQ decreased
18.86 points (0.37%) to 5,108.67, and the S&P 500 closed 9.25 points
(0.44%) lower at 2,080.86. The Russell 2000 was down 4.28 points (0.36%) at 1,198.10,
and the Wilshire 5000 fell 102.79 points (0.47%) to 21,658.55.
On the NYSE,
3.2 billion shares traded, with 1.3 declining issues for every advancing issue.
On the NASDAQ, 2.7 billion shares changed hands, with a slight lead for
decliners.
The price of the 10-year Treasury note was up 4/32,
decreasing its yield to 2.210%. The price of the 30-year Treasury bond
increased 15/32, bringing its yield down to 2.974%.
| | Compliance | Sponsors of defined benefit plans undergoing
distress or involuntary termination with valuation dates falling in 2016 have a
new table for determining expected retirement ages for participants. This table
is needed in order to compute the value of early retirement benefits and, thus,
the total value of benefits under a plan.Read more > | | From the Magazine | Array of Fixed-Income Investment Options Available | Few financial phenomena have endured like the
bull market in U.S. bonds, which has run with virtually no major interruptions
since 1981. With
the Fed potentially on the verge of turning it all around, investors are
focused on the near-term drop they might see in the bonds they own. Thinking
further ahead, though, plan sponsors, their consultants and asset managers are
looking at a possible new interest-rate regime and contemplating whether the
core and core-plus fixed-income strategies, which worked so well for
participants when rates were falling, will be sufficient when costs rise.Read more > | | Small Talk | ON THIS DATE: In
1835, Hans Christian Andersen
published his first book of fairy tales. In 1913, Ford Motor Co. began using a new movable assembly line that
ushered in the era of mass production. In 1941,
in the U.S., the Civil Air Patrol was created. In April 1943, the Civil Air
Patrol was placed under the jurisdiction of the Army Air Forces. In 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress in
Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man and was
arrested, marking a milestone in the civil rights movement in the U.S. In 1959, 12 countries, including the U.S.
and the USSR, signed a treaty that set aside Antarctica as a scientific
preserve, which would be free from military activity. In 1965, an airlift of refugees from Cuba to the United States began. In
1998, Exxon announced that it was
buying Mobil for $73.7 billion, creating the largest company in the world to
date. | TRIVIAL PURSUITS: In
addition to adopting an 8-hour work day and paying employees more than double
what his competitors were paying, Henry Ford offered profit sharing to certain
employees. However, in addition to six months of service, employees were
required to meet another, what could now be illegal, eligibility requirement.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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