Mind Over Market

In a joint hearing before the Department of Labor and the Securities and Exchange Commission, regulators questioned the make-up of target-date funds and the disclosures related to them. Such funds have been increasingly popular with plan sponsors -- as well as employees -- but even some with the same target date have widely divergent equity allocations. By Robert Stowe England Human Resource Executive Magazine June 25, 2009 Closer scrutiny of target-date funds by the U.S. Department of Labor and the Securities and Exchange Commission is likely to prompt new regulatory initiatives by both government agencies. A lengthy day-long joint DOL-SEC hearing on June 18 highlighted a number of issues facing employers that include target-date funds as options in company-sponsored plans, especially when the target-date funds are designated as a default investment. To read the full story at Human Resource Executive click on this link: http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=225086569

The Department of Labor and the Securities and Exchange Commission will hold a joint one-day hearing June 18 to explore issues that have been raised about target-date funds or life-cycle funds. These are funds that allocate assets into a mix of stocks and bonds based on the age of the investor, with higher equity allocations for younger investors. The poor performance of these funds in the market crash has raised issues about their appropriateness in employer-sponsored retirement saving plans. By Robert Stowe England June 8, 2009 The Department of Labor gave its regulatory blessing to target-date or life-cycle funds in the fall of 2007 at the peak of the market, giving employers the green light to offer these funds to employees who had not made a choice among the investment options in an employer's 401(k) plan. DoL then identified target-date funds as one allowable choice for so-called qualified default investment options (or QDIA's in the lingo of the bureaucrats). For more in...