| Benefits & Administration | Low Interest Rates Ease Pension Debt Restructuring | Prolonged low interest rates have prevented
pension plans from riding record-setting equity markets to a higher aggregate
funded status—but there is a flip side to low interest rates when it comes to
risk transfers and pension debt restructuring.Read more > | | Products, Deals & People | Towers Watson has acquired Acclaris, a provider
of software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based technology and services for
consumer-driven health care and reimbursement accounts, including health
savings accounts (HSAs), health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) and other
consumer-directed accounts. The acquisition enhances Towers Watson’s position
as a health benefits administration and exchange provider.Read more > | | Economic Events | In the week ending May 9, the advance
figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims for unemployment insurance was
264,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s unrevised level of
265,000, the Labor Department reported. The four-week moving average was
271,750, a decrease of 7,750 from the previous week’s unrevised average of
279,500. This is the lowest level for this average since April 22, 2000 when it
was 266,750.
The average interest rate for a 30-year,
fixed-rate mortgage is 3.85%, up from 3.80% one week ago, according to Freddie
Mac. The average interest rate for a 15-year, fixed-rate mortgage is 3.07%, up
from 3.02%.
The Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand fell
0.4% in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced. Final demand prices
rose 0.2% in March and decreased 0.5% in February. In April, index for final
demand goods declined 0.7%. Prices for final demand services edged down 0.1%.
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| Market Mirror | Encouraging
data about the U.S. job market and inflation helped lift the market Thursday,
the Associated Press reported. The Dow closed 191.75 points (1.06%) higher at
18,252.24, the NASDAQ climbed 69.10 points (1.39%) to 5,050.80, and the S&P
500 gained 22.62 points (1.08%) to finish at 2,121.10. The Russell 2000
increased 12.83 points (1.04%) to 1,245.11, and the Wilshire 5000 was up 227.12
points (1.02%) at 22,387.05.
On the NYSE,
3.2 billion shares traded, with advancing issues outnumbering declining issues
more than 3 to 1. On the NASDAQ, 2.8 billion shares changed hands, with a more
than 2 to 1 lead for advancers.
The price of the 10-year Treasury note increased
12/32, bringing its yield down to 2.232%. The price of the 30-year Treasury
bond climbed 21/32, decreasing its yield to 3.052%.
| | Compliance | Experts Say Hardship Self-Certification Was Never Allowed | The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently
issued a publication about appropriate documentation retirement plan sponsors
should keep for participant hardship and loan requests. Some industry groups
and providers say a recent IRS publication goes against prior guidance, but
experts at the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries (ASPPA)
Virtual Conference disagree.Read more > | Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee), chairman of
the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, led a group of 36
Senate Republicans requesting the Department of Labor (DOL) extend the comment
period for its proposed rule on the fiduciary definition. Casting the proposed
rule as potentially threatening to a wide swath of the investing public, the
senators say that more time is needed for “thorough consideration of all issues
and interests to make sure working and middle-income Americans are not harmed”
by changes to the fiduciary standard prescribed by the Employee Retirement
Income Security Act (ERISA).Read more > | Fiduciary Rule Could Have Unintended Consequences | The proposed conflicted investment advice rule
from the Department of Labor (DOL), though designed to protect retirement plan
and IRA participants, may actually hurt them, according to experts at the American
Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries (ASPPA) Virtual Conference.Read more > | | From the Magazine | Are You Providing the Right Savings Opportunities? | When companies offer a retirement plan to their
employees, “the overall objective of [all] plan sponsors should be the
same—i.e., driving sustainable financial outcomes for their participants,” says
Bradley Arends, CEO of Alliance Benefits in Albert Lea, Minnesota. However,
sometimes just a defined contribution (DC) plan is not enough to properly
prepare participants, and plan sponsors may want to consider adding
supplementary savings vehicles.Read more > | Does Your TDF Match Your Participant Demographics? | Available in a variety of flavors—packaged,
custom, proprietary, multi-manager—and with several different glide paths and
underlying investments, target-date funds (TDFs) are a prevalent investment
choice in today’s retirement plans. As the Department of Labor (DOL)’s 2007 qualified
default investment alternative (QDIA) regulation mandates, target-date funds
must be chosen deliberately according to the age or life expectancy of the
defaulting participant group and plan demographics. Given their popularity, the
fiduciary burden for retirement plan committees to prudently select and monitor
the funds is high.Read more > | | Small Talk | ON
THIS DATE: In 1862,
the U.S. Congress created the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1918, regular airmail service between
New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., began under the direction of
the Post Office Department, which later became the U.S. Postal Service. In 1930, Ellen Church became the first
female flight attendant. In 1940, nylon
stockings went on sale for the first time in the U.S. In 1942, gasoline rationing began in the U.S. The limit was three
gallons a week for nonessential vehicles. In 1951, AT&T became the first corporation to have one million
stockholders. In 1970, U.S.
President Nixon appointed America’s first two female generals. In 1980, the first transcontinental
balloon crossing of the United States took place. In 2014, the National September 11 Memorial Museum was dedicated in
New York City.
And now it’s time for FRIDAY FILES!
| One of the potential hazards of living to see
your 102nd birthday.Read more > | Whether they like the house or not, potential
home buyers won’t forget this house tour.Read more > | This is how your tooth gets pulled when your father
is an Olympian javelin thrower.Read more > | In Bakersfield, California,
a woman has filed a lawsuit against her former employer, claiming she was fired
for disabling an app that tracked her 24/7. The former sales executive for
money transfer service Intermex claims that her boss fired her shortly after
she uninstalled the job-management Xora app that she and her colleagues were
required to use on their company-issued iPhones, arstechnica.com reports. According
to the lawsuit, the woman and her co-workers asked whether Intermex would be
monitoring their movements while off duty. The boss admitted that employees
would be monitored while off duty and bragged that he knew how fast the woman
was driving at specific moments ever since she installed the app on her phone. The
woman likened the app to a prisoner’s ankle bracelet and informed her boss that
his actions were illegal, to which he replied that she should tolerate the
illegal intrusion.
In Mount Morris, New York, owners
of Build-A-Burger told the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office that their
surveillance system and cash register had been stolen early one morning. Deputies
checked out a nearby hiking and biking path, where they found cash register
parts, surveillance system parts, rubber gloves, loose change and “a
steady trail of macaroni salad,” the Associated Press reports. Police say
they later learned that three men had stolen a large bowl of the salad and took
turns eating it while making their getaway.
In Beaver, West Virginia, a
43-year-old man went into a pharmacy wearing full camouflage and a paintball
mask. The Associated Press reports that the would-be robber started spraying
pepper spray in an effort to take down employees, but walked into the cloud of
pepper spray in front of him. He staggered out of the business and got into a
vehicle. Police investigating the incident discovered the name of the man who
was driving the vehicle, and the driver identified the suspect.
In Coventry, Vermont, the
latest Mother of the Year award contender—NOT!—has been charged with reckless
endangerment and child endangerment. A concerned citizen showed police video of
a Subaru station wagon driven by a man, with a woman and 5-year-old child on
top. WCAX News reports that police say the car reached speeds of 50 to 55 mph
during the two-mile ride. The child has been taken into protective custody.
| In Xuzhou City, in east China’s Jiangsu
Province, a 74-year-old man swears his cat gave birth to a Chihuahua. He
says he took the cat to his friend’s house personally for her to mate, the UK’s
Metro reports. She was put in a cage with a male cat for two days. But, he says
he is certain he hand-delivered a Chihuahua. “This is very confusing. I hope
the media reports this and we get some sort of explanation from a scientist,”
he said, according to the news report.Read more > | Have a great weekend! | 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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