401(k) Industry Moves Toward Benchmarking
By Randy Myers For years, smart companies have benchmarked their performance against their peers to identify opportunities for improvement in a variety of areas, from how efficiently they manage their inventory to how quickly they collect on their accounts receivable. One area they have often overlooked, especially if they were not a very large employer, […]
Stable Value Funds Seen Coping if Interest Rates Start to Rise
By Randy Myers The long downward trend in interest rates since the early 1980s has been beneficial to the stable value industry. Now, many economists believe that trend is in jeopardy, prompting questions about how the industry will respond. Declining rate environments favor stable value funds because their crediting rates—the actual earning rates posted to […]
Stable Value: A Return to Roots?
By: Randy Myers In the wake of the financial crisis, some stable value products popular decades ago are coming back into vogue. Insurance company–issued guaranteed investment contracts, or GICs, as well as a variety of similar guaranteed products, were at the height of their popularity through the 1980s. The guaran- tees provided by GICs were […]
Stable Value Statistics
By: Gina Mitchell Plan sponsors and 401(k) investors want to know the “numbers” to determine how their stable value fund stands up to other stable value funds and other investments options. SVIA has just completed work on two major surveys, which are a benefit of Association membership, that provide pertinent stable value statistics. SVIA’s Stable […]
Incorporating Lifetime Income Options in 401(k) Plans
By: Randy Myers Retirement plan sponsors have been slow to embrace them, but financial services firms continue to roll out life- time income products for the 401(k) market. These new products are designed to help retirement plan participants generate a steady stream of income in retirement, much as they would if they con- verted their […]
Stable Value and the Dodd-Frank Act: An Update
By: Randy Myers Are stable value wrap contracts a swap? The stable value industry argues that answer to the first question is no, making the second question moot. Federal regulators are undecided. Under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, a study group formed by the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) […]
Economist Says Debt of “Bankrupt”United States Far Worse than Advertised
By: Randy Myers Officially the federal debt at just over $14 trillion. In fact, says Boston University economics professor Laurence Kotlikoff, the real number is far, far higher—about $202 trillion. “The United States is bankrupt,” Kotlikoff told participants at the 2011 SVIA Spring Seminiar. “The official debt doesn’t capture most of the action when it […]
Editor’s Corner – Stable Value: Keeping Its Promises
By: James King, Prudential Insurance Stable value continues to perform well in the post-crisis world. However, the cloud of economic and regulatory uncertainty looms over all of us. To meet new challenges, we will need to adapt and change to succeed in this ever-evolving environment. The 2011 SVIA Spring Seminar provided a good opportunity to […]
Proposed Fiduciary Regulations Could Prove Problematic for Broker-Dealers
By: Randy Myers You knew this was going to be tricky. In the aftermath of the most recent financial crisis, Congress called for stiff new regulation of the financial services industry. Now, some of the regulations proposed by various federal agencies appear to conflict with those suggested by others. Exhibit A is a proposal from […]
