Products August 13, 2007

John Hancock Campaign Provides Info and Tools for 529 Sales

John Hancock College Savings has launched a multi-week back-to-school campaign for the busy 529 sales season, providing information and tools to financial consultants.
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According to a John Hancock announcement, the main components of the campaign, titled “Explore, Dream, Discover,’ include distribution of direct mail and sales ideas for the professionals and a lunchbox kit they can leave with clients. The mailings and sales ideas will be sent out from now through the week of September 17.

The Explore, Dream, Discover lunchbox kit offers useful tools for the college savings discussion and information about John Hancock Freedom 529, as well as back-to-school themed giveaways, the announcement said. John Hancock Freedom 529 is a national Section 529 college savings plan offered by the Education Trust of Alaska and managed by T. Rowe Price, and is distributed by Hancock Distributors LLC, through other broker/dealers that have a selling agreement with John Hancock Distributors LLC.

“A recent change in the “kiddie” tax – making it less attractive from a tax standpoint to save money in a child’s name – makes 529s stand out and gives the campaign even more timeliness,” said Diana Scott, Senior Vice President and General Manager of John Hancock College Savings, in the announcement. “Our hope is that the combination of information, tools and fun giveaway items helps generate adviser interest for a great busy season; we really want to give them everything they need to leverage the opportunity.”

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Products August 9, 2007

401(k) Advisors Adds Target Fund Performance to Scorecard

401(k) Advisors has enhanced its Scorecard System to measure the performance of asset allocation portfolios, known as lifestyle and lifecycle, or target date, funds.
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The Scorecard System has been enhanced to address two issues in measuring the performance of asset allocation portfolios, according to a press announcement:

  • Asset allocation funds are difficult to benchmark because they invest in a wide number of asset classes and the allocations vary over time. To address this, the Scorecard System uses customized benchmarks to measure each fund, identifying the “best fitting” benchmark, weighted across a selection of industry accepted third-party indexes. These custom benchmarks predominately reflect the proportionate equity and fixed income weightings for a particular fund and the weightings are adjusted every quarter as the fund’s allocation changes over time.
  • 401(k) Advisors redefined the peer groups for asset allocation funds based on their variation from expected returns (standard deviation), rather than simply measure performance against traditional industry groups. Measuring performance risk instead of performance against industry peers resolves an ambiguity in evaluating these funds effectively and better identifies the funds’ risk profiles, according to 401(k) Advisors. The lack of a single investment style or allocation range in these portfolios suggests that standard deviation may be the most effective way to employ peer analysis to measure these funds.

The funds are scored on a scale of 0-10, similar to the existing 401(k) Advisors Scorecard Methodology applied to core asset classes. The initial scoring of over 80 asset allocation funds showed that only 40% ranked favorably (7 or higher), and 20% of the remaining 60% were rated as poor (4 or lower).

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“The enhancements to our Scorecard System provide clients and their employees with exceptional opportunities for long-term competitive investment returns, in a framework that better identifies and manages risk,” said Jeff Elvander, Chief Investment Strategist at 401(k) Advisors, in the announcement.

More information is at www.401kadvisors.com.

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