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| Products, Deals and People |
| Optum Enhances Data Analytics to Increase HSA Savings |
| Optum says the enhancement has already shown results; accountholders who were targeted with new messages increased their balances, became eligible to invest, and chose to open investment accounts.Read more > |
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| Market Mirror |
| Stock and bond markets were closed Wednesday for a national day of mourning to honor former President George H.W. Bush. |
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| Sponsored message from Fidelity |
What Will the Investment World Look Like in 2025?
Artificial intelligence. Blockchain. Portfolio construction with a fintech startup. The ground beneath institutional investors may be poised for dramatic transformation.Read more > |
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| Industry Voices |
| Barry’s Pickings Online: A Burnt-Out Case |
| Michael Barry, president of October Three (O3) Plan Advisory Services LLC, discusses the multiemployer pension plan crisis, who may be to blame, and his views on writing off the multiemployer pension system.Read more > |
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| Investing |
| Institutional Investors Bracing for Continued Market Volatility in 2019 |
| Sixty-five percent of institutional investors expect the bull market will end within the next 12 months, according to a report from Natixis Investment Managers, “Keep Calm and Invest On.” Seventy percent expect another financial crisis within the next five years. Seventy-nine percent believe the current market favors active management, and their allocations to active strategies comprise 70% of their portfolios today, up from 64% in 2015. “For these sophisticated investors, actively managed strategies and alternative investments are their tools of choice to help optimize their portfolios for the challenges ahead,” says David Giunta, CEO for the U.S. and Canada at Natixis Investment Managers.Read more > |
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| Small Talk |
| ON THIS DATE: In 1735, in London, French surgeon Claudius Amyand performed the first successful appendectomy at St. George’s Hospital. In 1774, Austria became the first nation to introduce a state education system. In 1790, Congress moved from New York to Philadelphia. In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment abolished slavery in the U.S. In 1877, Thomas Edison demonstrated the first gramophone, with a recording of himself reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb. In 1883, “Ladies’ Home Journal” was published for the first time. In 1884, the construction of the Washington Monument was completed by Army engineers. The project took 34 years. In 1889, Jefferson Davis died in New Orleans. He was the first and only president of the Confederate States of America. In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge became the first president to give a presidential address that was broadcast on radio. In 1947, Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Harry Truman. In 1989, Egon Krenz resigned as leader of East Germany. In 1994, Orange County, California, filed for bankruptcy protection due to investment losses of about $2 billion. The county is one of the richest in the U.S. and was the largest municipality to file for bankruptcy. In 1998, astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavour connected the first two building blocks of the international space station in the shuttle cargo bay. |
| SURVEY SAYS: Recently, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana ordered the fiduciaries of a health benefit plan to pay restitution of $145,635 to 596 employees who paid a tobacco use surcharge as part of their medical insurance premium. Health benefit plan sponsors may legally implement a tobacco use surcharge as part of employees’ medical insurance premiums if employees are offered a reasonable alternative standard or waiver of that alternative. One could argue that tobacco use does not necessarily drive up health insurance costs or that it is not the only bad habit in which employees may engage that drives up costs. Employees who use too much alcohol, are overweight or obese or who do not follow prescribed medical treatments may also drive up health benefit costs. This week, I’d like to know, “Do you think it is fair for employers to impose higher premiums for health care benefits on tobacco users?” You may respond to this week’s survey by 6 p.m. Pacific time today.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 > |
