The Rise of Robo Advisors
In the nearly two decades since their debut, online investment advisory services have enjoyed modest success in convincing some investors to use them. Now they’ve got a sexy new name—“robo advisors”—and with it perhaps an improved chance of winning customers. Much has changed since industry pioneers like mPower and Financial Engines starting providing online investment […]
“Follow the Yield” for Stable Value Rate of Return Expectation
By Phil Connor, MassMutual When individuals are faced with a personal decision sometimes they’ll resort to that familiar advice of “follow your instinct.” For stable value investments, a phrase such as “follow the yield” comes to mind when endeavoring to determine how the rate of return on the investment may trend over time. Stable […]
Stable Times Volume 19 Issue 2
Download PDF The biannual publication of the Stable Value Investment Association that covers both industry concerns and association activities. Table of contents: Looking Back and Moving Forward Policy Maker Outlines Ideas for Improving Retirement Savings Plans Consumer Interest Groups Back Proposed New Fiduciary Standards Millennials’ Financial Outlook Better than Advertised—At Least for Some Fixed-Income Managers […]
Looking Back and Moving Forward
By Jim King, Prudential, SVIA Chairman As 2015 draws to a close, so does my tenure as Chairman of the Board of the Stable Value Investment Association. It’s been an eventful and exciting six years for me serving on the Board and for the stable value industry as a whole. As I sat down […]
Policy Maker Outlines Ideas for Improving Retirement Savings Plans
The modern defined contribution retirement savings plan—what most people today know as a 401(k)—is now three decades old. Its close cousins, 457 and 403(b) plans, have been around even longer. We’re still trying to get them right. The problem? While Americans held approximately $6.8 trillion in defined contribution plans at year-end 2014, according to the […]
Consumer Interest Groups Back Proposed New Fiduciary Standards
Proposed new fiduciary rules from the U.S. Department of Labor have drawn mixed reviews from the retirement industry, but consumer watchdog groups are fans. In April 2015, the DOL proposed expanding the definition of a fiduciary to effectively require anyone offering advice on or managing retirement accounts to act in the best interests of their […]
Millennials’ Financial Outlook Better than Advertised—At Least for Some
Conventional wisdom holds that young adults today face a dimmer financial future than their parents and grandparents. It’s a sentiment exacerbated, certainly, by the financial crisis of 2008, the great recession that accompanied it, and the slow pace of economic recovery since then. In a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, the vast majority […]
Fixed-Income Managers See Opportunities Despite Low Interest Rates
Despite extraordinarily low interest rates that would seem to have nowhere to go but up, some investment managers contend that fixed-income markets were offering some solid opportunities heading into 2016. A key variable in that outlook is U.S. monetary policy. Ever since the Federal Reserve set the target for its benchmark federal funds rate near […]
Advisor to Global Leaders Sees U.S. in Throes of Political and Social Revolution
The deep partisan divide in Washington, D.C., may suggest to some that the country’s future is not as bright as its past. Best-selling author and polling advisor Stanley Greenberg isn’t among them. He contends the U.S. is poised for further greatness. But he does see the country being transformed by a series of revolutions whose […]