Practice

Returns on target-date funds continue to disappoint, with the five largest 2010 funds trailing the S&P 500 by 11 percentage points since the market’s March 9 low. They are up an average of 25% since that date, well below the benchmark index’s 36% rise, The Wall Street Journal reports.

As the economic slump curbs retirement savings and the government considers imposing curbs on target-date funds, Great-West Retirement Services is trying out what its president is calling "the next generation" of target-date funds.

It won't be easy in the aftermath of a global recession, but with the right mixture of transparency and expertise, wealth managers will be able to regain their status as trusted advisers.

In the wake of Bernie Madoff's monumental, $60 billion Ponzi scheme, regulators are proposing to increase accounting safeguards by requiring mandatory surprise audit inspections of every investment adviser with custody of client assets.

A new advocacy group aims to tackle the consumer with a media campaign to explain the differences between advisers’ fiduciary standard of care and brokers’ suitability standard. The organization announced its formation yesterday. Calling itself The Committee for the Fiduciary Standard, it plans to launch a month-long campaign at some point in the near future.

Calling revenue-sharing agreements between mutual funds and 401(k) administrators “controversial,” today’s “Fund Track” column in The Wall Street Journal urges investors to pay attention to these fees, since some funds levy them and others do not. Actively managed funds in large plans, rather than index funds or small plans, tend to charge higher revenue-sharing fees, the column warns.

Noting that one-quarter of employers have either already cut or plan to cut their 401(k) match, financial advisers are reminding investors of the importance of saving for retirement.

Hedge funds appear to be on track to deliver returns of 6% or better in the second quarter, their best quarterly performance since 2000, Merrill Lynch analysts project.

Advisers to 401(k) plans recently have revisited the wisdom of offering annuities, in light of last year’s severe market downturn. But group annuities are being criticized for subjecting investors to lockup periods of five years or longer and a variety of additional fees.

While Fidelity Investments agrees with most of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed changes to money market funds, it doesn’t want to see “radical changes” to the asset class, a spokesman told The Wall Street Journal.