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| Editor’s Note: In this edition of NewsDash, we highlight the year’s coverage of investment committee best practices. |
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| Minutes Essential | |
| Meeting minutes are critically important. So important, in fact, that Summer Conley and Michael Rosenbaum with Drinker Biddle and Reath are continuing their discussion on the do’s and don’ts of taking them. Here, they pick up from their last column and focus on the procedural issues associated with taking minutes.Read more > | |
| Options for Investment Help | |
| Even if retirement plan participants decide how to allocate their accounts from among their plan’s investment options, selecting those options is a fiduciary responsibility. When selecting and monitoring investment options, a plan’s committee members are held to a special fiduciary standard often referred to as the prudent man rule. This means committee members must act with the care and skill that a prudent person would if acting in a similar capacity and being familiar with such matters. But most committee members are not investment experts and don’t know what type of prudent process to follow. So what should they do?Read more > | |
| Choosing The Right Adviser | |
| Getting independent expert investment help can be key to satisfying a retirement plan committee’s fiduciary duties with respect to selecting the plan’s investment options. Investment help may be in the form of a nondiscretionary 3(21) investment adviser or a discretionary 3(38) investment manager. Once a committee has decided on which type of expert to use, the next question is how to select the appropriate provider.Read more > | |
| Sponsored message from OneAmerica | |
| (b) InformedHave questions about your tax-exempt retirement plan? OneAmerica® is here to help – servicing tax-exempt organizations for more than 50 years. Check out our free resources to support your efforts.Read more > | |
| Economic Events | |
| THE ECONOMIC WEEK AHEAD: Tomorrow, the Conference Board will reveal its Consumer Confidence Index for December. Thursday, the Labor Department will issue its initial claims report. | |
| Market Mirror | |
Friday, the Dow lost 28.23 points (0.11%) to finish at 24,754.06, the NASDAQ closed 5.40 points (0.08%) lower at 6,959.96, and the S&P 500 decreased 1.23 points (0.05%) to 2,683.34. The Russell 2000 fell by 4.18 points (0.27%) to 1,542.93, and the Wilshire 5000 dropped 11.86 points (0.04%) to 27,864.84.
The price of the 10-year Treasury note decreased 1/32, bringing its yield up to 2.484%. The price of the 30-year Treasury bond was up 5/32, decreasing its yield to 2.833%. WEEK’S WORTH: For the week ending December 22, the Dow finished 0.42% higher, the NASDAQ was up 0.34%, and the S&P 500 increased 0.28%. The Russell 2000 gained 0.82%, and the Wilshire 5000 was up 0.47%. | |
| Benefits & Administration | |
| PSNC 2017: Educating Investment Committees | |
| A panel at the PLANSPONSOR National Conference discussed choosing investment committee members, as well as best practices for training them.Read more > | |
| Paper Offers Best Practices for Retirement Plan Committees | |
| Callan Institute took a look at the practices of retirement plan committees to find out what they are doing right and what they could be doing better. Callan discovered that plans with more than 10,000 participants are more likely to have both an investment and an administrative committee, while plans with less than 10,000 participants tend to have a single committee. A Callan Institute report makes suggestions for size, staffing and training for investment and administration committees.Read more > | |
| Compliance | |
| Investment Committee Quiz Reveals Fiduciary Knowledge Shortfall | |
| Pavilion Advisory Group has released the results of its “Fiduciary Primer Quiz,” highlighting a variety of shortfalls in institutional investing fiduciary awareness at a time when the demand for excellence is increasing. According to Susan McDermott, chief investment officer at Pavilion, the goal of creating and circulating the quiz also included providing retirement industry professionals “with a bit of a refresher course on institutional investing.” As such, the quiz is still available for those interested in testing their fiduciary knowledge. The results prove that institutional investing can be a tricky topic for even the most experienced investment committee members.Read more > | |
| Small Talk | |
| ON THIS DATE: In 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers landed at New Plymouth, Massachusetts, to found Plymouth Colony, with John Carver as Governor. In 1776, the British suffered a major defeat in the Battle of Trenton during the American Revolutionary War. In 1865, the coffee percolator was patented by James H. Mason. In 1941, Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. In 1941, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed a resolution that set a fixed-date, the fourth Thursday of November, for the Federal Thanksgiving Day holiday. In 1974, comedian Jack Benny died at age 80. In 1982, the Man of the Year in “TIME” magazine was a computer. It was the first time a non-human received the honors. In 2002, the first cloned human baby was born. The announcement was made the December 27 by Clonaid. | |
| TRIVIAL PURSUITS: Who invented peanut butter?Read more > | |
| Share the news with a friend! Pass the NewsDash along and tell your friends/associates they can sign up for their own copy.Read more > |
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Editorial: Alison Cooke Mintzer alison.mintzer@strategic-i.com
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