Can Stable Value Funds Keep Pace with Inflation?
The financial markets have historically experienced volatility and market uncertainty, which remain key themes in today’s markets. Investors saving for retirement are challenged to find strategies to generate enough income after inflation to last through their retirement years. Even modest inflationary pressures can eat into retirement savings and reduce actual purchasing power of money. This […]
Stable Times Volume 20 Issue 1
Download PDF The biannual publication of the Stable Value Investment Association that covers both industry concerns and association activities. Table of contents: Retirement through the Generations Stable Value Trends and Opportunities Legal Update – Plaintiffs’ Bar Updates New Theory Leadership: The Other Stable Value New York Life Fixed Income Manager Sees Continued US Economic Growth, […]
Retirement through the Generations
Americans’ expectations about when they will retire, and how they will pay for it, vary significantly depending upon their age, according to new research from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. The center polled more than 4,500 working Americans in early 2015 for its 16th Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey of Workers. To compare their views […]
Stable Value Trends and Opportunities
They’ve been a staple of defined contribution retirement plans for more than four decades, but stable value funds still have room to grow. Speaking at the 2016 SVIA Spring Seminar, executives from investment advisor Callan Associates noted that stable value funds continue to be used by more than 60 percent of the 100plus large defined […]
Legal Update – Plaintiffs’ Bar Updates New Theory
Financial services firms that cater to the retirement plan market might be excused for thinking there’s a target on their back. As attorneys from the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius explained at the 2016 SVIA Spring Seminar, the ERISA plaintiffs’ bar continues to test new theories about ways that service providers, and plan […]
Leadership: The Other Stable Value
In early April, the U.S. Department of Labor finally issued its long-anticipated new rule extending fiduciary responsibility to anybody who is compensated for providing investment advice, whether to individuals or retirement plans. In a nutshell, it requires fiduciaries to act in the client’s best interest. Sounds simple. But the so-called streamlined rule is 1,028 pages […]
New York Life Fixed Income Manager Sees Continued US Economic Growth, Fixed-Income Opportunities
It’s easy to be worried about investment risk right now. China, the world’s second largest economy, is experiencing growing pains that have sent oil and other commodity prices tumbling. China’s attempts to transition from an economy built on government infrastructure spending to one built on consumer spending is going to be tricky. Meanwhile, Japan and […]
It’s no joke: High-quality bonds deserve respect
The late comedian Rodney Dangerfield used to joke about getting no respect. Fran Kinniry, a principal in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group, wonders whether traditional bonds sometimes suffer the same fate. Fran Kinniry”For a number of years, I’ve talked to investors and financial advisors about portfolio construction and how to increase diversification,” Mr. Kinniry said. “Whether […]
Retirement Plans Take Different Tack on Money Funds
People saving for retirement in workplace 401(k) plans may soon see changes to the lowest-risk choices on their investment menus. The adjustments—which have occurred already at some plans but are under consideration at many more, consultants said—are in response to new rules for money-market mutual funds that will take effect in October. “Prime” money funds […]