401(k)s Investment Products

News

Labor Department Proposes Dollar-Based 401(k) Fee Disclosure

Projects Roughly $225 Million Annually in Lower Fees for Participants Due to Better Transparency

Barclays to Offer Target-Date & Target Risk ETFs

Funds-of-Funds to Draw From Existing iShares

401(k) Debit Cards The Next Credit Threat?

‘We Absolutely Hate It’: AARP

MME’s Fund Operations Awards — Extension for Entries Through July 31

The deadline for entries to Money Management Executive's Sixth Annual Fund Operations Awards has been extended through Thursday, July 31, so you still have plenty of time to enter. This is the perfect way to receive the accolades you believe your firm or service provider deserves for one or more of the following categories: Leadership, Innovation, Efficiencies/Streamlining and New Media. Entry forms and information are available at our website: http://www.mmexecutive.com/fund_operations_awards/. …

401(k) Debit Card Touted in Face of Congressional Attack

Reserve Management Maintains Plastic Keeps Withdrawals Small

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Articles

Equity Mutual Funds Slip 15 Basis Points in 2Q08

Mutual fund investors held resilient in the second quarter of the year, 'shrugging off weakness in the labor and housing markets and even ignoring the rising cost of oil and gas,' announced Tom Roseen, senior research analyst for Lipper, during the firm's press conference last Tuesday on the quarter's results. 'We saw in the headlines that it was a very bad quarter, the worst quarter for the Dow since 1929, but I think you are going to see that that's not the case for mutual funds,' Roseen said. 'Certainly for a lot of the big, large-cap and value-oriented funds it was a real dour quarter and a horrible month in May, but if you take a grander look at things, the first two months of the quarter were really, really good.'

Funds Become Wrappers For ETFs in 401(k)s

Hennion and Walch, a small New Jersey fund firm, is introducing ETFs into 401k plans by wrapping them in mutual funds.

Target-Date Funds May Not be Best DC Option: Enormously Popular Category Has Yet to be Perfected

Despite their tremendous growing popularity for their set-it-and-forget it convenience of automatically reallocating equity-to-fixed income ratios every year for 401(k) investors, target-date mutual funds may not be the best option for defined contribution plans.

Death Knell for Dominance In 401(k)s, Edelman Says

The Supreme Court's recent decision in LaRue v DeWolff to permit workers in 401(k) plans to sue administrators for high fees will inevitably lead to lower fees-and the end of the retail mutual fund industry's dominance of the market. That's the strong opinion of widely quoted, and frequent financial TV guest Ric Edelman. This past February the Supreme Court ruled in favor of James LaRue, a worker suing the administrators of his 401(k) pension plan on breach of fiduciary duties, Edelman, a financial planner, notes. LaRue claimed that DeWolff, Boberg & Associates, Inc. ignored LaRue's instruction to change to more stable investments, eventually leading to depletion of his pension by approximately $150,000. The Supreme Court ruled that this was a breach of fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

In the Future, Please Call Him 'Charles'

By now, investors are accustomed to the creative, informal 'Talk to Chuck' advertisements of Charles Schwab & Co. in which animated, yet somewhat realistic, images of people gripe about trying to get through to other brokers, but take heart at the thought of reaching Chuck Schwab, the man, through one of his people. But furthering that notion in a brand-new series of straightforward advertisements has left some investors scratching their heads, asking, 'What happened to Chuck?'

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