Investing

The industry has made much more headway on improving participant portfolio construction, says Jean Young with the Vanguard Center for Retirement Research.

Market volatility and funding relief allowing lower required contributions have impacted the value of LDI and other pension plan de-risking strategies, SEI says.

Morningstar Investment Management believes the first order of business for sponsors and their retirement plan advisers when selecting the appropriate glide path for their plan’s demographics is to...

DB plan sponsors should act to protect themselves in the new regime, and in some cases, they can capitalize from it.

Portfolio managers shared what they feel are the most compelling opportunities in the equity markets today.

A survey finds the strongest growth in smart beta adoption is among asset owners with less than $1 billion in assets.

CEM Benchmarking found that the annual cost to manage the CalPERS portfolio was approximately $52 million lower than its peers.

Among bond funds, active and passive strategies attracted new investment totaling $17.6 billion and $9.7 billion, respectively, during April. 

Wilshire TUCS finds the main exception to poor performance for first quarter was the U.S. real estate asset class.

Based on the current environment, investors’ return expectations may be more difficult to reach with traditional investment models.

New research from Cerulli Associates argues managed accounts and target-date funds each have distinct roles to play on the retirement plan investment menu. 

Corporate ERISA plans had the best performance in the quarter.

In addition, nearly six in 10 recently hired plan participants invested in target-date funds.

The asset-weighted average net expense ratio of all U.S. funds was 0.61% in 2015, down from 0.64% in 2014 and 0.73% five years ago, according to Morningstar data.

While investment managers surveyed by Northern Trust feel confident about economic prospects in the U.S., some worries persist about global performance. 

Passive funds continued to drive the strongest inflows, according to Strategic Insight. 

The index is the basis for the Endowment Collective Investment Fund (CIF), used by DC plans.

Declining interest rates were a main driver for the negative change in funding ratios.

Institutional investors are increasingly using factor investing, which takes into account economic growth, inflation and volatility, among other things.

Retirement plan consultants say that active management is important for most major asset classes.