August’s Retirement Report opens with “The Importance of historical scores.” Historical scores are quickly forgotten when new scores are released, but are they really yesterday’s news? In the same respect that rolling period returns are deemed important,
rolling score history is equally if not more.  Next “Fiduciary Liabilities: What are they?  How can they be mitigated?

Also-The Investment Due Diligence process places an important emphasis on a fund’s style, employing a technique called “quadratic optimization.” A big word, and even bigger mathematical equation, which calculates the style of a fund, reflecting how a fund behaves, or what segment of the market the fund best represent.  August 2014

July’s Retirement Report has some great topics.  The first of which is what to expect and a timeline for transitioning providers.  The next topic talks about the future of retirement plans-It is estimated that by 2017 plan 59% of plan sponsors will have received a level retirement readiness report.  Finally a quick look at GAP Analysis-Participant-directed retirement plans put onus on the employee to make important decisions regarding their financial future. The obvious (and most important step) an employee can take when it comes to his or her retirement plan is to participate in the plan. But what is the next important step?  July 2014

The “I” word is back. Where you might ask? Have you booked a flight or hotel room recently? The price of gasoline has been consistently close to $4.00 a gallon. Commodities of all types from food to raw materials have seen upward price pressures. But is it a bad thing? I’m not referring to that persistent double digit variety that those of us of a certain age can still remember. Inflation has been essentially non-existent as an investment theme for several years. Central banks have been working hard the last few years to actually create inflation for fear that the alternative, deflation, would result in a serious contraction of economic activity. The economy stagnates or even contracts as everyone does less waiting for lower prices. Shoppers spend less, businesses invest and build less and government collects less taxes.  Newsletter 6-30-2014 

The determination of reasonableness of fees has always been a core fiduciary function for ERISA plan sponsors. ERISA Section 408(b)(2) regulations increased scrutiny on this responsibility. The Department of Labor (DOL) has taken this step to solidify specific requirements for plan sponsors and service providers, regarding communication of fee information.  June 2014