Investing

An analysis from the 2019 BlackRock DC Pulse survey compares investment preferences of 403(b) and 401(k) plan sponsors and also highlights 403(b) plan sponsors’ focus on retirement income...

Year-to-date, investors have favored fixed income on 186 trading days, or 86% of the trading days available, according to Alight Solutions.

"The new normal for interest rates simply means that retirement investors have to take more risk,” says Steve Foresti, CIO at Wilshire Consulting. 

Until recently, the marketplace expected the U.S. and China would, year over year, continue to integrate and overlap their economic systems. Increasingly, it seems the two spheres are...

Currently church and public defined benefit (DB) plans focus more on returns, and their funded status is lower than for corporate plans, River & Mercantile notes in a...

Common biases impacting retirement plan investors include the availability bias, belief perseverance bias, confirmation bias, herding bias and more.

Alight Solutions says the steady stream of trades in one direction made for the heaviest quarter of net trading since the third quarter of 2016.

The use of index funds by plans in the BrightScope Defined Contribution Plan Database increased from 79% of plans and 16.7% of assets in 2006 to 91.3% of...

In a study by the TIAA Institute asking subjects to make decisions resembling portfolio allocations, researchers found those with more financial education made more rational decisions.

Falling equity returns accelerated the trend this year of participants moving into fixed income investments, according to Alight Solutions.

Panelists at the 2019 PLANSPONSOR National Conference discussed the risk-reduction and performance benefits that ESG can bring and that certain challenges associated with the use of CITs by...

The growing landscape of decumulation solutions includes in-plan insurance products, managed payout funds, managed accounts, out-of-plan annuity windows and more.

A Cerulli Associates report explains how different alternative investments can help a derisking defined benefit (DB) plan with liability hedging as well as risk-seeking.

Additional conclusive information about environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment performance may help retirement plan sponsors be less wary about making ESG investment decisions.

Researchers argue that financial illiteracy impedes plan participants’ ability to determine how to invest their savings, and propose mandated employer-provided financial education to address limited employee financial literacy.

A previous Schwab analysis found retirement plan participants in advised self-directed brokerage accounts (SDBAs) displayed a more diversified asset allocation mix and had a lower concentration of assets...

Both for novice individuals and sophisticated institutions, investor perceptions of preparedness for market turbulence can often differ from actual readiness.

Bob Browne, CIO at Northern Trust, argues that pension plan sponsors should not wait to de-risk their plans based solely on the assumption that interest rates will rise.