Tactics for Combating Low Bond Yields
Dividend-paying stocks and preferreds, lower-quality bonds, and stable-value funds top readers’ lists of investments for a yield-starved environment. Click here to read more
Invesco Strategist Sees Continued Slow Growth, Low Rates in the U.S.
The Federal Reserve may have just ended its massive quantitative easing program aimed at keeping interest rates low, but don’t expect rates to spike significantly higher as a result, says Rob Waldner, chief strategist and head of multi-sector for Invesco Fixed Income. Opening the second day of the 2014 SVIA Fall Forum on October 14, […]
An Appraisal: ERISA at 40
Forty years ago President Gerald Ford signed into law the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, better known as ERISA. Congress’ overarching goal in writing the law was to protect the interests of workplace retirement plan participants and their beneficiaries. The results have been mixed, although many of the shortcomings in the nation’s private […]
Living with Target-Date Funds
Over the past decade, target-date funds have grown to account for about 20 percent of the assets in defined contribution plans. By some estimates, that figure could double by 2018. That makes figuring out how to thrive alongside target-date funds one of the most important challenges facing the stable value industry. It also was the […]
An Inside Look at How America Saves
It should not be that difficult. For a defined contribution plan to work for you, says Jean Young, senior research analyst at Vanguard Group and lead author of its periodic report on retirement plan participant behavior, How America Saves, you simply need to save enough and invest appropriately. Unfortunately, Young said at the 2014 SVIA […]
As Market Stabilizes, Stable Value Industry Looks to Growth
With the turmoil of the 2008 financial crisis largely in the past, the stable value industry is turning its focus to growth. The latest SVIA survey of 22 stable value managers shows that from the end of 2012 through the first half of stable value assets held fairly steady. In total, stable value funds now […]
Plan Litigation: When Stable Value Becomes a Target
For three decades following passage of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act in 1974, defined contribution plans largely escaped the eye of class-action plaintiffs’ attorneys. That all changed in 2006, when an Illinois-based law firm began filing lawsuits against plan service providers, typically alleging some violation of ERISA based on the fees being charged to […]
Collision Course: Social Security and a Slow-Growing Economy
Conventional wisdom holds that the Social Security program will soon become insolvent because the number of people collecting benefits has grown exponentially relative to the number of people paying into the system. That is largely true. But it is not the only challenge to the federal retirement program. In an address at the 2014 SVIA […]
Stable Times Volume 18 Issue 2
Download PDF The biannual publication of the Stable Value Investment Association that covers both industry concerns and association activities. Table of contents: As Market Stabilizes, Stable Value Industry Looks to Growth [PDF] Millennials and Stable Value: Made for Each Other? [PDF] Dodd-Frank Remains Work in Progress [PDF] Collision Course: Social Security and a Slow-Growing Economy [PDF] An Appraisal: ERISA at […]