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Investments

Back to the Basics – Pay Special Attention to the Fund Menu.

At some point, a certain amount of apathy and blasé comes to those who watch legal proceedings relevant to retirement plans. Another excessive fee lawsuit involving overpriced funds. More performance lagging investments. Failure to negotiate rising recordkeeping costs. However, a unanimous, swift, and pointed proclamation from the Supreme Court merits attention. And the most recent treatise demands that plan sponsors and their advisors go back to the basics with respect to retirement plan fund menus.In the matter of Hughes v. Northwestern University, SCOTUS rejected the idea that a fiduciary can escape the legal challenge of having imprudent investment options in the plan, as long as there are other, prudent options. Rather, the Court reinforced the notion that plan fiduciaries must monitor “all” plan investments and remove “any” imprudent ones. Furthermore, fiduciaries must consider all the investments “at regular intervals” to ensure that they are prudent. Is this being done? As a plan sponsor or a retirement plan advisor, are you regularly reviewing your plan’s fund menu? With all the focus on “financial wellness” and “fiduciary training,” let’s not forget the basics: Fiduciaries must actively review plan investment options, ideally against stated criteria, at regular intervals. Equally important is documentation of

Trick or Treat – How does that fund wind up on the platform?

The next time you’re speaking with a 401(k) service provider, ask them how that fund (any of the funds) happened to make it onto their platform.  Is it because that fund has superior investment performance?  Is it because the platform provider or insurance company’s well-heeled cadre of analysts deemed that fund to be investment worthy?  While we’re sure (well

401(k) Investment Menu; Less is More

In the old days, some plan sponsors treated 401k investment menus like a restaurant menu. If somebody (influential) wanted a fund in the lineup it was added. The result of this in many plans were investment menus with too many funds, overlapping funds and dominated funds. Lineups like that are confusing to participants and result in poor(er) asset allocation.