Compliance September 24, 2003

Feds Grant Form 5500 Filing Relief Due to Isabel

September 24, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Federal officials are giving companies that took the brunt of Hurricane Isabel's fury more time to file their Form 5500 paperwork.
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>The US Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) announced the extension to file a 5500 or 5500-EZ for companies hit by property damage, destruction and power outages from the storm that bull-dozed its way through Southern and Mid-Atlantic states leaving hundreds of thousands of customers in the dark.

>Affected companies who were required to file their Form 5500 on or between September 18, 2003 and November 18, 2003 now have until November 18, 2003 to get it in.

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>The extension applies to plan administrators, employers and other entities located in areas directly affected as identified in IRS’s Tax Relief at    www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=113066,00.html .   The extension also applies to filers located outside the affected areas who were unable to obtain the necessary information from service providers, banks or insurance companies whose operations were directly affected by the hurricane.

Filers entitled to this extension should check Part 1, Box D, on the Form 5500 or Part 1, Box B on Form 5500-EZ, and attach a statement labeled “Hurricane Isabel 2003” explaining the basis for the extension being claimed under this relief. Filers who have additional questions may contact the EFAST Help Line at (866) 463-3278.

Investing September 23, 2003

State Street Associates Unveils Institutional Confidence Measure

September 23, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - State Street Associates has pulled back the curtain on the State Street Investor Confidence Index tracking the buying patterns of higher-risk investments by global institutional investors.
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The index, developed by Harvard Professor Ken Froot and State Street Associates Director Paul O’Connell, is based on financial theory that assigns precise meaning to changes in investor risk sentiment, or the willingness of investors to hold proportionally more or less of their portfolio in higher-risk investments, a press release said. The more of their portfolios that institutional investors are willing to devote to more volatile investments over less volatile investments, the greater their appetite for risk and the greater their confidence.

“Just as consumer confidence surveys aim to determine whether consumers are willing to spend money, our index sheds light on whether or not institutional investors are bullish enough to take on higher risk investments given economic fundamentals and market conditions,” O’Connell said in a statement.

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The monthly index data for September shows investor confidence fell marginally from August, but remains strong compared with the first six months of 2003. In September, the index fell 0.2 points to 103.4 from 103.6 in August, and is still well above the 96.4 average in the first half of the year.

Because the index is a quantitative measure of the investment behavior of thousands of institutional investors, it is not directly tied to good or bad news, or to the price of stocks, bonds or other assets so it can more easily help measure investor sentiment, according to a press release.

State Street Associates is a subsidiary of State Street Corporation.

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