| Webcast Event | Join us for a webcast that will highlight our
2014 MullinTBG/PLANSPONSOR Executive Benefits Survey results, with a focus on
identifying barriers to participant engagement—including the surprising and not
so obvious—and how we can leverage new communication and education tools that
take a more intuitive and simplified approach to positively influence behavior
that can lead to more successful outcomes for participants and plan sponsors
alike.Read more > | | Benefits & Administration | What Providers Should Bring to Communications | There aren’t many different ways a retirement
plan provider can say it processes transactions promptly and makes sure
participants have correct information, but a provider can differentiate itself
by what it offers for participant communications, according to Cynthia Hayes,
president of Oculus Partners. In a webcast sponsored by communications provider
Broadridge, Hayes noted that communications is one of the largest areas of
expenditure for plan providers and plan sponsors. It is one of the fastest-changing
areas in retirement plan administration, as technology and participants change,
so it requires long-term investing of money and resources. Plan sponsors
wanting to step up participant communications should make sure their providers
are in tune with the latest trends.Read more > | Some DC Plans Not Taking Advantage of QDIAs | Half of plan sponsors do not take advantage of
qualified default investment alternative (QDIA) safe harbor protections, according
to preliminary results from an upcoming survey report from AllianceBernstein. Richard
Davies, senior managing director of defined contribution and co-head North
America at AllianceBernstein Institutional Investments, says this seems to parallel
the finding that more than one-third of plan sponsors do not actually know they
are fiduciaries.Read more > | Behaviors That Sabotage Retirement Savings | Years of education, communication strategies and
support haven’t done as much to move the needle on retirement plan participant
retirement readiness as plan sponsors and advisers hope to see. For America
Saves Week, Prudential wanted to answer a simple question: Why is long-term
savings so hard for participants? According to Jennifer Putney, vice president
of Total Retirement Solutions at Prudential Retirement, the firm turned to the
behavioral sciences to formulate an approach that would help them understand
the behaviors that help or hinder decision-making.Read more > |
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| Sponsored message from SEI | Is your plan lineup designed to help participants succeed? SEI’s DC Trends Research Series investigates the actions plan sponsors are taking in terms of simplifying the menus of their defined contribution plans.Read more > | | Products, Deals & People | Legal & General Investment Management
America, Inc. (LGIMA) will extend distribution of its products to the public
defined benefit plan, Taft-Hartley plan and foundation/endowment segments of
the institutional investing market. To assist in this effort, LGIMA has hired
Mark Toomey as senior client portfolio manager.Read more > | A new investment research tool from Aon Hewitt
provides “insightful and transparent” ratings of thousands of investment
products, based on eVestment data and analytics.Read more > | | Economic Events | Sales of new single-family houses in January
2015 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 481,000, according to
estimates released jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of
Housing and Urban Development. This is 0.2% below the revised December rate of
482,000, but is 5.3% above the January 2014 estimate of 457,000. | | Market Mirror | Major U.S.
stock indices were little moved Wednesday. The Dow was up 15.38 points (0.08%)
at 18,224.57, the NASDAQ slipped 0.98 of a point (0.02%) to 4,967.14, and the
S&P 500 decreased by 1.62 (0.08%) to 2,113.86. The Russell 2000 increased
by 1.13 (0.09%) to 1,235.10, and the Wilshire 5000 closed 5.93 points (0.03%)
higher at 22,314.56.
On the NYSE,
3.2 billion shares changed hands, with 1.3 advancing issues for every declining
issue. On the NASDAQ, 2.8 billion shares traded, with a slight lead for
advancers.
The price of the 10-year Treasury note was up 4/32,
decreasing its yield to 1.966%. The price of the 30-year Treasury bond
increased 17/32, bringing its yield down to 2.567%.
| | Compliance | Justices Consider ‘Duty to Monitor’ Investments | A review of argument transcripts in Tibble v. Edison shows U.S. Supreme
Court justices had an extensive amount of questions for both the appellants and
appellees—many of which strayed far beyond the narrow review to which the
Supreme Court initially said it would limit itself. Earlier case filings show
the Supreme Court justices planned to limit their review to the issue of the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) statute of limitations, but Michael
Graham, a partner and co-chair of the ERISA Litigation Affinity Group at
international law firm McDermott Will & Emery, tells PLANSPONSOR that issue
“basically got ignored.”Read more > | | From the Magazine | Fiduciary Outsourcing Options | Know exactly what you are getting, and why it
makes sense to get it. That is the bottom line of experts’ advice to plan
sponsors who have decided to outsource some of their fiduciary duties to a
third party.Read more > | | Investing | Newly published research finds that plan
sponsors’ expectations of performance are driven by past performance,
investment consultants’ recommendations, and soft factors that they identify in
their asset managers, such as having a consistent investment philosophy, clear
decisionmaking processes and capable investment professionals. Researchers
Howard Jones, from the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and Jose
Martinez, from the University of Connecticut School of Business, say the
partial dependency of expected performance on past performance and soft factors
is not, in itself, irrational. Investors could use such variables as signals of
future performance. However, what they did find irrational is that past
performance is relied upon when it is uninformative about future performance,
and the same was true for soft factors.Read more > | | Small Talk | ON THIS DATE: In
1919, the Grand Canyon in Arizona was
designated a national park. In 1929,
President Calvin Coolidge signed into law a bill passed by both houses of the
U.S. Congress establishing the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. In 1993, a bomb exploded in the parking
garage beneath the World Trade Center in New York City. | SURVEY SAYS: Recently,
we covered a survey that found 38% of Americans say they have fallen asleep at
work. This week, I’d like to know, have you fallen asleep on the job? What
other work mistakes have you made because you were tired? And, how do you
refresh yourself when tired at work? You may respond to this week’s survey by 6
p.m. Pacific time today.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 > | News from PLANSPONSOR.com
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