Products May 13, 2009

Goldman Sachs Offers Tool to Help Advisers Select Funds

Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) launched a retirement plan analysis tool to help financial advisers determine the right fund line-ups for retirement plans.
Reported by

GSAM has teamed up with Morningstar Advisor Workstation, including the Defined Contribution Plan analysis module, to offer the service.

According to a news release from GSAM, some of the key features of this tool help financial advisers to:

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  • compare a retirement plan’s current investment line-up to a proposed line-up by analyzing retirement plan-level statistics;
  • ensure consistency with the investment policy statement;
  • view style diversity, consistency, risk and return, and category performance scores for entire plans and individual funds in one process;
  • show fee and fund expenses to outline a plan’s overall costs.



Data & Research May 12, 2009

Participants Could Accept ‘Mortality-Contingent’ Products

A study found that 30% of surveyed participants would definitely or likely be willing to trade leaving inheritance in order to generate more lifetime income than would be possible otherwise.
Reported by

Furthermore, 40% would possibly consider such a move, according to a news release from String Financial, based in Hartford, Connecticut, about its recent study.

String said it also found current investor education efforts are coming up short, with participants’ asserting that educational materials are:

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  • difficult to understand—34% of respondents felt the materials included concepts that were not adequately explained;
  • commodity product—41% of respondents agreed that the materials do not contain information that could not be easily found elsewhere (19% disagreed);
  • ineffective—18% of respondents indicated that the educational resources led to changes in retirement planning behaviors or practices.

More than half (51%) of participants either could not estimate how much of their salary they could replace in retirement, or they estimated the percentage they could replace was less than what they needed. At the same time, 47% remained confident in their ability to maintain their standard of living in retirement.

The third-quarter 2008 survey covered more than 400 defined contribution plan participants. The full report is available here.

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