IMHO

In a business notorious for change, it nonetheless seems fair to say that the past twelve months have been extraordinary ones indeed for financial advisers.

Here we go - - - again.

These days, the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA) is sometimes referred to as the “Pension Destruction Act.″

We don’t have a large yard, but it’s big enough to be “unruly.″

Last week, no fewer than a dozen industry trade organizations put their collective heads together and tried to help the Department of Labor—which has been working on a project regarding fee disclosure, and has asked for input—put together some workable principles on retirement plan fee disclosure.

I am fortunate enough to have access to a vast array of studies, research, and surveys about this business.

Without question, asset-allocation solutions—particularly target-date fund solutions—are well on their way to becoming a dominating force on retirement plan menus.

I was on a panel at our recent Plan Designs conference, and the topic of qualified default investment alternatives (QDIAs) came up.

Last week the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a 67-page report titled “Conflicts of Interest Involving High Risk or Terminated Plans Pose Enforcement Challenges.″

“[T]he complaint is a rambling 38 page collection long on legal argument, public policy rhetoric and repetition, but vague in its allegations of facts which might be relevant to the claims alleged.″

A couple of weeks ago, my better half told me that she thought it was time that we traded in two of our aging vehicles – one a car that is too small for our family, the other a van that now seems too big for all but cross-country trips – for something in the middle.

In nearly 30 years working with employer-sponsored retirement plans, I am hard-pressed to call to mind a product innovation that has been adopted with as much vigor as the current generation of target-date funds.

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research titled “New Estimates of the Future Path of 401(K) Assets.″

There’s little question that automatic enrollment “works,″ at least in terms of turning employees into participants—just as there is little doubt that, left to their own devices, too many employees remain on the retirement-savings sidelines.

Plan sponsors (and advisers) who think the Pension Protection Act’s automatic enrollment safe harbor represents an easy solution to disappointing participation rates may have another “think″ coming, according to the findings of recent industry data—Including PLANSPONSOR’s own 2006 Defined Contribution Survey.

We have long been concerned about the attention deficit of participants when it comes to their 401(k) plans.

Last week, I stumbled across another of those “DC plans are becoming like DB plans″ articles—you know, the “DB-ification″ of 401(k)s?

The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and Matthew Greenwald&Associates published the 17th Annual Retirement Confidence Index last week – and, for the very most part, it’s probably safe to say it didn’t tell us much we didn’t already know.

Sooner or later in your career, you are exposed to the 80/20 rule or, as purists term it, the Pareto principle.

When Fidelity announced this last week that it was dropping its pension plan, it drew my attention.