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November 1st, 2023
Insight on Plan Design & Investment Strategy Every Weekday
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| ECONOMIC EVENTS |
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The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index declined moderately in October to 102.6, down from an upwardly revised 104.3 in September. The Present Situation Index—based on consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions—declined to 143.1 from 146.2. The Expectations Index—based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions—fell slightly to 75.6 in October, after declining to 76.4 in September. The Expectations index is still below 80—the level that historically signals a recession within the next year. Consumer fears of an impending recession remain elevated, consistent with the short and shallow economic contraction we anticipate for the first half of 2024.
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| MARKET MIRROR |
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Tuesday, the Dow rose 123.91 points (0.38%) to close at 33,052.87, the Nasdaq rose 61.76 points (0.48%) to close at 12,851.24 and the S&P 500 rose 28.98 points (0.65%) to close at 4,193.80. The Russell 2000 gained 14.99 points (0.91%) to close at 1,662.28, and the FT Wilshire 5000 Index gained 286.44 points (0.69%) to close at 42,059.95.The 10-year Treasury note decreased 24/32, bringing the yield to 4.934%. The 30-year Treasury bond decreased 6/32, bringing the yield to 5.097%.
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EVENTS
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Navigating ESG
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What is the current status of ESG investing for asset owners, plan sponsors and plan advisers? Who are the experts and where can investors go for information? What questions should investors ask as part of their due diligence? These questions and more will be discussed at the 2023 Navigating ESG Livestream event on November 8. 
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ON THIS DATE: In 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists, members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation, attempted to assassinate U.S. President Harry S. Truman but were stopped by the Secret Service before entering Blair House, where Truman was residing due to White House renovations. In 1952, on an atoll of the Marshall Islands, Edward Teller and other American scientists tested the first thermonuclear bomb, also known as a hydrogen bomb, its power resulting from an uncontrolled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. In 1981, Antigua and Barbuda achieved independence from the United Kingdom, with Vere Bird serving as the first prime minister. In 1993, the Maastricht Treaty entered into force, establishing the European Union. In 1994, NASA launched its Wind spacecraft on a mission that would include a “halo orbit” between the Sun and the Earth to explore the space environment there. In 1997, James Cameron’s “Titanic” had its first public screening at the Tokyo International Film Festival; the movie would become one of the highest grossing of all time, and it made Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet international stars. In 1999, professional football player Walter Payton, one of the game’s greatest running backs, died from bile duct cancer. In 2006, novelist William Stryon—known for his treatment of tragic themes and his rich classical prose style, highlighted in such works as “Sophie’s Choice”—died at age 81.
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| Industry Intel Roundup—Featured Webinars | | PLANSPONSOR is pleased to present the next edition of our Industry Intelligence roundup. This week, we are featuring webinars sponsored by experienced providers in the industry. The content was created to educate, inform and offer ideas for plan sponsors regarding plan design, investing, administration and compliance. |  | | SPONSORED BY: Principal | October 30, 2024 | | Rethinking Retirement: Participant Engagement Trends and Best Practices | | Dive into key participant behaviors and engagement trends that can reshape how we approach retirement planning. This presentation highlights the complexities participants face in understanding their eligibility and reveals misconceptions about their enrollment. We’ll explore targeted strategies to help boost participation rates and address certain generational gaps. In today’s saturated digital environment, participants are conditioned to ignore marketing-style emails.
Discover best practices in how to refine your messaging and break through the noise. Finally, we’ll explore why the “easy button” plan features haven’t been working. By evolving messaging to meet participants where they are paired with best practice plan design features, we aim to drive deeper engagement and better outcomes. |
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|  | | December 12, 2024 | | Plan Benchmarking | | How do plan sponsors determine the right goals for their plans or measure plan success? What tools are available to benchmark retirement plans? What should plans be measuring and how often? What kinds of actions or improvements can measurements drive? These questions and more will be answered in PLANSPONSOR’s final editorial webinar of 2024. |
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| | |  | | SPONSORED BY: Corebridge Financial | September 30, 2024 | | How College Planning Fits Into Financial Wellness | | When it comes to the college search, you’ll often hear talk about finding the right “fit.” Usually that means academic and social fit, but a key piece of fit is also the financial fit. A college degree is one of the most expensive purchases a family will make in their lifetime. Figuring out what you will pay, how much you can afford, and how you will find the best value for your money is a critical component of any college search. In this webinar, New York Times bestselling parenting and higher education writer Jeff Selingo will explain how to assess the value of a college and ways to compile the college list with financial wellness in mind. Jeff spent a year inside the college admissions process for his book, Who Gets In and Why, and has written about higher education for 25 years. |
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| | | September 19, 2024 | | Financial Wellness | | Plan sponsors, advisers and policy experts will offer suggestions for how best to define and measure the financial wellness of participants and drive financial confidence. The panel will also review how they evaluate the myriad new offerings appearing as a result of the voluntary benefits provisions of SECURE 2.0. Attendees will come away with tangible metrics for determining which programs will offer the most useful and valuable programs for their employees. |
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