| | Benefits & Administration | | Employees Need Clearer Benefits Education During Open Enrollment | | Many employees overestimate their understanding of benefits, and less than half believe their employer is doing a good job educating them about benefits, according to a Guardian study.Read more > | | DB Plans Are Not Totally Disappearing | | Data extracted by the Department of Labor’s (DOL)’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) from 2014 Form 5500 reports finds defined benefit (DB) retirement plans are not disappearing. The number of defined benefit pension plans increased by 1.6% in 2014; however, defined contribution plans remain the dominant retirement plan type.Read more > | | Use of Certain 401(k) Plan Auto Features Declines | | Use of auto-deferral increase and auto-rebalancing has declined in the past two years; however, there is increased interest from 401(k) plan sponsors in offering participants investment advice, research finds.Read more > | | | Market Mirror | Yesterday, the Dow was down 18.77 points (0.10%) at 18,142.42, and the NASDAQ and S&P 500 were virtually unchanged at 5,189.13 and 2,126.15, respectively. The Russell 2000 increased 3.77 points (0.32%) to 1,191.38, and the Wilshire 5000 was up 12.84 points (0.06%) at 22,072.49.
On the NYSE, 3.1 billion shares changed hands, with a slight lead for advancing issues. On the NASDAQ, 2.9 billion shares traded, with a slight lead for decliners.
The price of the 10-year Treasury note was up 7/32, decreasing its yield to 1.826%. The price of the 30-year Treasury bond increased 22/32, bringing its yield down to 2.583%. | | | Industry Voices | | Barry’s Pickings Online: Intimations of Mortality | | Michael Barry questions whether there is a lack of commitment to Social Security as a social insurance system, but rather a desire to use the opportunity presented by the Social Security “crisis” to cook up more schemes for re-distributing income from “rich people.”Read more > | | | Small Talk | | ON THIS DATE: In 1512, Michelangelo’s paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were first exhibited to the public. In 1800, U.S. President John Adams became the first president to live in the White House when he moved in. In 1848, the first medical school for women, founded by Samuel Gregory, opened in Boston. The Boston Female Medical School later merged with Boston University School of Medicine. In 1864, the U.S. Post Office started selling money orders. The money orders provided a safe way to send payments by mail. In 1870, the U.S. Weather Bureau made its first meteorological observations using 24 locations that provided reports via telegraph. In 1879, Thomas Edison executed his first patent application for a high-resistance carbon filament (U.S. Pat. 223,898). In 1894, “Billboard Advertising” was published for the first time. It later became known as “Billboard.” In 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to assassinate U.S. President Harry Truman. One of the men was killed when they tried to force their way into Blair House in Washington, D.C. In 1952, the United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb on Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. In 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urged all Iranians to demonstrate on November 4 and to expand their attacks against the U.S. and Israel. On November 4, Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 63 Americans hostage. In 1994, the Amazon.com domain name was registered. In 1998, Iridium inaugurated the first handheld, global satellite phone and paging system. | | TRIVIAL PURSUITS: Excluding cities in Alaska, which U.S. city is the largest in area?Read more > | | Share the good 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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