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Week ending September 29th, 2017 |
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Hello, PLANSPONSOR readers! This week’s focus is on investing. There is some concern about the search for yield in target-date funds (TDFs). Since the financial crisis of a decade ago, in an effort to combat years of incredibly low interest rates, some active fixed-income strategies held in TDFs have taken on additional risk within their portfolios. “As a result, some TDF fixed-income exposures risk the potential of behaving more like equities than bonds, should significant market stress return,” Jake Gilliam, senior multi-asset class portfolio strategist, Charles Schwab & Co., says. John Lowell, with October Three, suggests an alternative to liability-driven investing (LDI) for some defined benefit (DB) plan sponsors. Morningstar discusses what “clean shares” really means, and Willis Towers Watson extols the virtues of white label funds. All this and more in this edition of PLANSPONSOR Weekend! |
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| Events | | PLANADVISER National Conference | | The PLANADVISER National Conference (PANC) is the retirement plan industry’s premier networking and business strategy event for specialist retirement plan advisers! What’s so different this year? Everything. Start with an all-new agenda designed by, and loaded with, retirement plan specialists … A powerful roster of big-name speakers invited to educate and entertain throughout the conference’s three days … And more focused networking activities than ever before, created to allow old relationships to renew and new relationships to develop. Join us next month in Orlando!Read more > | | | Investing | | Search for Yield in TDFs Can Leave Older Investors Over Exposed | | Greater exposure to higher-yielding corporate bonds can notably dampen a fixed-income allocation’s diversification benefits to equity investments.Read more > | | | Investing | | For Some DB Plan Types IDL, Not LDI, Is the Answer | | John Lowell, with October Three, says for two types of DB plans, investment-driven liabilities (IDL) is almost risk free for plan sponsors and provides more meaningful benefits to participants.Read more > | | | Investing | | Overly Broad Clean Shares Discussion Can Mislead Novice Investors | | As a follow up to Morningstar’s recent response to the Department of Labor’s (DOL) request for information on the fiduciary rule implementation process, the firm has published an infographic aimed at helping retirement plan professionals answer the crucial question, “How clean are my funds?”Read more > | | | Investing | | White Labeled Funds Attract More Plan Sponsors | | Willis Towers Watson makes the case for white label funds in a new paper.Read more > |
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