SPARK Answers Questions about 403(b) Best Practices

The SPARK Institute released a question and answer Web page to address questions it received following the release of its “Best Practices for 403(b) Plans Information Sharingâ€″ Minimum and Comprehensive Data Elements” in July.

“The SPARK Institute will maintain this site and update it periodically with answers to questions it receives,” said Larry H. Goldbrum, general counsel of The SPARK Institute, in a press release.

Goldbrum encouraged 403(b) plan sponsors and providers to submit questions to data-elements.questions@sparkinstitute.org, which will be reviewed and answered on the site to the extent possible.

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SPARK first issued its Best Practices document in May and updated it in July to reflect a project by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) to develop an information sharing service (see SPARK Updates 403(b) Info Sharing Practices to Reflect DTCC Project). Goldbrum said The SPARK Institute has received more than 400 requests for copies of the Data Elements and is preparing a list of companies that have indicated they intend to follow them.

The Web page is at www.sparkinstitute.org/403b-q-a.php.

Van Eck Introduces Hard Assets ETF

New York-based asset manager Van Eck Global has launched the Market Vectors-RVE Hard Assets Producers exchange-traded fund (HAP).

The firm says it is the first and only global hard assets ETF on the American Stock Exchange.

HAP seeks to replicate, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of The Rogers-Van Eck Hard Assets Producers Index (RVEI), which is designed to provide a reliable, comprehensive benchmark for measuring the performance of the global hard assets industry, according to a press release.

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HAP covers 321 companies in 40 countries and six sectors as of the end of August and captures more than 90% of the industry’s global stock market capitalization. The sectors covered include energy, agriculture, base metals, precious metals, forest products, and water and renewable energy (solar and wind). Van Eck says the RVEI is the first commodities equities index to include water and renewable energy.

The index includes only those companies that derive at least 50% of their revenues from the applicable commodity sector, with the exception of water, for which constituents must generate at least 25% of their revenues from that industry.


More information is available at www.vaneck.com/HAPetf.

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