Data & Research April 2, 2014

Record High Retirement Account Assets in 2013

At year-end 2013, retirement account assets were $19.018 trillion, according to Spectrem Group’s Retirement Market Insights Report 2014.
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“It appears that the impact of the financial crisis of 2008 to 2009 has finally been overcome,” says Spectrem Group’s president, George H. Walper Jr. “Plan sponsors who reduced or eliminated matching contributions at that time have largely restored them, and participants maintained their commitment by continuing to contribute to their plans. These developments, combined with the strong investment market of the past year, generated the highest year-end retirement assets on record.”

According to the report, which is based on periodic surveys of retirement plan sponsors and participants, as well as publicly available data, last year’s retirement assets grew from $16.3 trillion at year-end 2012, following a strong equity market. These results were seen across all sectors of the retirement market:

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  • The private sector—$7,855.2 billion
  • Individual retirement accounts (IRAs)—$6,201.6 billion
  • The public sector—$3,975.4 billion
  • 403(b) plans—$985.4 billion

The Retirement Market Insights Report 2014, which includes retirement gap findings and retirees’ largest expenses, can be purchased here.

Products April 1, 2014

CFDD Launches Liquid Alternatives Resource Site

The Center for Due Diligence (CFDD) launched a liquid alternatives Web page designed to help manufacturers, distributors and advisers of these products.
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The page provides fund information, education, due diligence and research on liquid alternative investments for defined contribution (DC) plans. The CFDD anticipates the free resource will assist in the appropriate use of these investments as a plan level option or as a diversifier in a custom asset-allocation solution. According to the CFDD, the resource is the only centralized product depository and resource of its kind currently available.

The page provides advisers with an overview of each fund, and identifies the most competitive share class with low or minimum requirements for retirement plans as well as the applicable revenue sharing. Additional resources, such as a featured “Liquid Alt Fund of the Month” and application (app), will become available as product listings are added, and the CFDD has announced that a dedicated institutional Web page will follow this one.

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Select vendors may list their products, services and research on the site at no cost; all product listings link back to the vendor’s website. 

The resource is here.

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