Investment Product and Service Launches

Hartford Funds Launches New Factor-Based Equity ETF

Hartford Funds announced the launch of the Hartford Disciplined US Equity ETF, a U.S. large-cap, product. HDUS is designed to address growing client demand for a strategy with broad, representative core equity exposure that seeks to deliver enhanced relative total returns while minimizing uncompensated active risks. HDUS is the firm’s seventh multifactor ETF and sixteenth ETF across the firm’s product suite.

Key highlights and details about the Hartford Disciplined US Equity ETF Fund include:

• Leverages a rules-based process that seeks to target balanced and consistent exposure over time across value, momentum, quality and dividend yield while simultaneously controlling for total active risk and volatility level
• Construction that is designed to perform in a variety of market environments by utilizing a diverse set of return drivers and yield enhancement within a controlled active risk framework
• Potential for lower costs and tax efficiency by taking advantage of the ETF structure and index rebalancing properties
• Tracks its total return performance against the Hartford Disciplined US Equity Index, which is comprised of a select list of U.S. large-cap equities. The custom index was designed and constructed by Hartford Funds and is rebalanced semi-annually
• Trades on the New York Stock Exchange with an expense ratio of 0.19%

BenchMine Creates Free Search Engine of 401(k) Industry Plan Data

BenchMine, a comparative analytics engine powered by OnlyBoth’s AI innovations, has launched a free search tool that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of more than 54,000 retirement investment plans. BenchMine draws on Department of Labor 401(k) data for 2021, transforming a complex dataset into easy-to-understand comparisons of each plan’s costs, performance and other key characteristics.

BenchMine was previously made available to Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association and Plan Sponsor Institute members. Raul Valdes-Perez, co-founder and CEO of OnlyBoth, has made the search and analysis of 401(k) data from 2021 free and open as a resource for plan sponsors, providers, participants and all stakeholders to deepen their understanding of the options and opportunities at every level of the 401(k) industry.

BenchMine analyzes 2021 Department of Labor 401(k) data made publicly available in late October. Users can search more than 54,000 plans that total more than $6.6 trillion in assets. The included plans start at $1 million and are explored computationally for days. Four analytics engines can then quickly generate targeted insights.

• Benchmarking Engine reveals how a plan performs in its asset class, industry, geography or other characteristics.
• The Comparison Engine provides a side-by-side look at the characteristics and qualities of up to 10 plans.
• The Scoring Engine scores a plan based on the discovered benchmarking insights, which then enables a ranking.
• The Discovery Engine lets users do simple data lookups, but also access with richly diverse queries the hundreds of thousands of stored insights.

BenchMine creates and stores benchmarking insights, enriched with links to related plans and supporting context.

Corebridge Financial Introduces Dimensional Index Designed for The Power Series of Index Annuities

Corebridge Financial Inc. announced the introduction of the Dimensional U.S. Foundations Index, created for use exclusively in the Power Series of Index Annuities, Corebridge’s family of fixed index annuities.

The Dimensional U.S. Foundations Index will be distributed through Market Synergy Group, one of the nation’s largest networks of independent marketing organizations.

The Dimensional U.S. Foundations Index emphasizes diversified exposure to small-cap, value and high-profitability stocks to pursue higher expected returns than the overall market. The index also evaluates price changes in commodity futures and targets widening yield spreads in U.S. Treasury bonds to help generate higher growth potential while maintaining a targeted level of volatility. Dimensional combines its research-driven approach with historical data from Salt Financial’s truVol Risk Control Engine, a patent-pending tool that captures higher-frequency, intraday data to adapt more quickly to changing trends across equities, fixed income and commodities.

The Power Series of Index Annuities are issued by American General Life Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Corebridge Financial, Inc., formerly known as AIG Life & Retirement. These annuities offer tax deferral, principal protection against down markets, growth potential through a diverse range of index interest accounts and guaranteed lifetime income options to help consumers prepare for retirement. Guarantees are backed by the claims-paying ability of AGL.