Tag: TDFs

The checklist is included in a guide that offers questions to ask and items to consider.

The retirement plan sponsor’s choice of a default investment should not reflect the full distribution of employee investor types, but rather those who would select it, a research report suggests.

Sixty-one percent of all participants surveyed by J.P. Morgan agreed with the statement, “If I could push an ‘easy’ button for retirement and completely hand over my retirement planning and investing to a financial professional, I would.”

A look at actively managed versus passively managed equity and bond funds, blended target-date funds, and with more sponsors encouraging retirees to remain in their plan, how defined contribution plans need to address retirement income solutions.

Sixty-four percent of participants in their 20s own a TDF.

Greg Porteous, head of defined contribution intermediary distribution at SSGA based in Boston, says he sees the lowering of target-date fund (TDF) investment fees as a way to attract more 403(b) plan clients for two reasons.

Lincoln Financial Creates Personalized Target-Date Portfolios; Aon Hewitt-Managed Pooled Funds Claim Compliance with GIPS; Broadridge Financial Increases Data and Analytics Team; and more.

Investors in TDFs need to look beyond price tags to investment strategy to determine the appropriateness of the fees and should be mindful of the relatively tight dispersion of returns within TDF categories, Morningstar warns.

It would also be good for them to include emerging markets equities, target-date funds, alternatives, international bonds and specialty bonds.

Panelists discussed numerous investment options that can push additional retirement savings. 

Franklin Templeton Creates Additional Active Funds; Hartford Funds Presents ETF Focused on Fixed Income; First Trust Introduces Actively Managed ETF; and more.

Looking ahead, Vanguard researchers estimate that 77% of participants on the firm’s recordkeeping platform will be invested in a single TDF by 2022.

MassMutual Introduces New TDFs; J.P. Morgan Updates TDF Selection Tool; and Krane Funds Advisors Creates CIT for Retirement Plans.

SEI has been talking to TDF managers about deploying strategies within their investment lineup that mitigate the potential downside.

Professional investment assistance helps DC plan participants’ outcomes; however, an analysis from Alight Solutions found users of managed accounts see higher returns, are more diversified and save more in their DC plans.

A broad new Investment Company Institute analysis shows the expense ratios of target-date mutual funds have fallen 34% since 2008, alongside the expense ratios of most other types of long-term funds. 

Russell Investments Discusses New ESG Finding; Merrill Lynch Brand Designs ESG Portfolios; and EDHEC-Risk Institute Examines Retirement Products and TDFs. 

The lawsuit alleges Principal used proprietary investment vehicles, rather than other investment vehicles, and share classes with higher fees for the underlying TDF investments, to produce more income for itself and its subsidiaries.

In its discussions with TDF managers, Mercer has found many managers say they have not aligned with the ACWI, and have continued with portfolios that display home equity bias for a number of reasons; the research also shows strong growth in passive TDF market share.

Putnam Announces New Pricing for TDFs; First Trust to Launch AI and Robotics ETF; and Vanguard Launches Factor-Based ETFs.