Hot off the Presses

SPONSOR & PARTICIPANT TOOLS

The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) developed a calculator that shows 401(k) participants plan loan costs in terms of lost savings and investment opportunities.

RolloverSystems Inc. offers an online calculator that workers can use to determine how much money they will receive if trying to withdraw money from their 401(k) accounts.

Lincoln Employer Markets launched Morningstar Retirement Manager, including Morningstar Associates’ 401(k) managed accounts service.

ftwilliam.com released its 409A nonqualified deferred compensation plan document, which can be used by most plan sponsors to meet the January 1, 2009, compliance deadline.

Prudential Financial, Inc., debuted its Retirement Workbook, a newly designed personalized enrollment guide that delivers content for defined contribution (DC) plan participants who are transitioning to Prudential Retirement or are new hires.

AIG Retirement launched 403(b) University, a vendor-neutral resource with up-to-date information and tools for 403(b) plan administration and compliance assistance, including employee resources and a section for manager solutions.

The SPARK Institute released a Non-ERISA-Covered 403(b) Plans Request for Proposal Guide to help employers conduct vendor searches. The free guide can be used with single and multiple vendor searches.

Still River Retirement Planning Software released software to support ongoing compliance with 403(b) regulations, and help plan sponsors comply with IRS regulations requiring 403(b) plan sponsors to monitor participant loans and hardship withdrawals.

Guides from Principal Financial Group will provide 403(b) sponsors with step-by-step actions over the next several months to help 403(b) sponsors comply with IRS regulations.

TIAA-CREF introduced a Web-based application for plan sponsors to manage participation transactions as required by 403(b) regulations effective next January.

Prudential Retirement issued a new Planning and Resource Guide to help its 403(b) clients manage plan transitions. The guide includes an overview of Prudential Retirement’s service solutions for plan document and information-sharing requirements, as well as suggestions about how to prepare for the new general administrative responsibilities.

Kravitz, consultant to cash balance plans, announced a series of podcasts available to the public from its Web site, cashbalancedesign.com.

Great-West Retirement Services now offers a virtual classroom to educate participants in the DC plans it manages. The programs instruct via a series of video lessons supplemented by a downloadable workbook, and cover retirement, financial, and investment planning.

ADVISER TOOLS

John Hancock Funds redesigned the Adviser Center portion of its Web site, which includes services and tools to help advisers build their business. The redesign enables advisers to find information quickly anywhere on the site, typically in two clicks or less.

John Hancock Variable Annuities designed a tool to help advisers develop guaranteed retirement income plans for their clients. The Advisor of Choice program centers around the Income Readiness Review, a customizable program providing advisers with materials to conduct a client review.

TD AMERITRADE Holding Corporation introduced Bond Wizard, a tool to help investors find bonds and certificates of deposits (CDs) or build a bond ladder.

Albridge Solutions Inc. unveiled a managed account performance reporting capability on its Albridge Wealth Reporting application that could bring registered investment advisers (RIAs) increased reporting capabilities, and enables advisers to handle consolidated reporting of managed accounts and retail accounts under one platform.

FundQuest added five new products to their Wealth Architect platform: investment product ActivePassive Portfolios, Russell Managed Model Strategies and LifePoints Funds, and FundQuest separately managed account (SMA) models and income portfolios.

Sun Life Financial Inc. introduced Retirement Blueprint, a program designed to help advisers enhance their income planning skills. The program provides the step-by-step process and tools needed to engage clients in a discussion about lifetime income.

Principal Financial Group released a tool to help financial professionals walk clients through retirement planning. The guide, Retirement Readiness Reviews, is the latest addition to the More Business. Less Time. client program Principal launched last year.

INVESTMENT BENCHMARKING

MSCI Barra launched the MSCI Global Currency Indices. The indexes reflect the performance of both the currency and interest rate returns of the developed and emerging market currencies in regional or composite MSCI equity indexes.

BNY Mellon Asset Servicing introduced a 130/30 Large Capitalization Peer Group Universe through its Performance & Risk Analytics (P&RA) product line.

Dow Jones Indexes and Brookfield Asset Management Inc. launched the Dow Jones Brookfield Infrastructure, an index to benchmark toll roads, pipelines, and ports.

Dow Jones Indexes launched the Dow Jones GCC and Islamic Market (GCC) indexes, which measure the performance of conventional and Shari’ah-compliant stocks of five of the GCC member states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates. The firm also launched the Dow Jones GCC Titans 40 Index, the third in its efforts to build a family of Gulf Cooperation Council GCC indexes.

Dow Jones Indexes is expanding its Dow Jones Global Titans family by adding a blue-chip index for India. The Dow Jones India Titans 30 Index measures the performance of the 30 largest and most liquid stocks listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India.

Standard & Poor’s combined the S&P/Citigroup Global Equity Indices with the S&P/IFCG and Frontier Index Series to form the S&P Global Equity Indices. The index series, which goes live October 1, will provide coverage of 12,400 companies in 83 countries around the world.

Vanguard Group launched the Vanguard Total World Stock Index, which seeks to track the investment performance of the FTSE All-World Index, a benchmark of approximately 2,900 stocks in 47 countries.

MSCI Barra has launched the MSCI Global Currency Indices, which reflect the performance of both the currency and interest rate returns of the developed and emerging market currencies in regional or composite MSCI equity indexes.

INVESTMENTS

USAA unveiled a new family of five Target Retirement Funds, composed of underlying USAA equity and bond funds, in 10-year increments, beginning with 2020, and includes a retirement income option.

TradeWeb, an over-the-counter multi-asset class online marketplace owned jointly by Thomson Reuters and 10 global dealers, plans to introduce an online marketplace for “covered” bonds backed by pools of U.S. residential mortgages.

The IQ Alpha Hedge Strategy Fund from IndexIQ uses a proprietary investment process to synthesize the risk and return profiles of a broad range of hedge fund investing strategies. The no-load, open-end mutual fund is designed to give investors access to hedge fund-like performance in a low-cost, transparent, and highly liquid investment vehicle.

SEI launched a suite of target-date portfolios utilizing collective investment trust vehicles with retirement dates in five-year increments from 2010 to 2050.

PIMCO launched the PIMCO Unconstrained Bond Fund (UBF), which uses the firm’s investment process and is not tethered to benchmark-specific guidelines.

Turner Funds introduced the Turner Quantitative Broad Market Equity Fund, a no-load mutual fund that uses its proprietary quantitative model to determine stock selection and invests in companies across the U.S. stock market with capitalizations typically greater than $700 million.

Baron Funds unveiled its Baron Retirement Income Fund, which invests in growth companies to provide investment growth along with income that outpaces inflation. The new offering is a no-load, open-end, non-diversified mutual fund that invests primarily in small to mid-size growth companies. The fund will pay investors a minimum distribution of 4% of net assets per share each year, which they may choose to receive or reinvest.

SEI now offers three new funds to DC and defined benefit (DB) retirement plans, sub-advised by Independence Investments LLC. The Independence Fundamental Mid-Cap Collective Fund and the Independence Amplified Alpha Collective Fund are versions of existing separate account investment strategies that Independence has been managing for many years. The approach is a long-only concentrated “best ideas’ U.S. equity strategy blending proprietary techniques and public information on institutional holdings.

Lord, Abbett & Co. LLC introduced the Lord Abbett International Dividend Income Fund (LIDAX), a dividend-focused, total return strategy that seeks to invest in international stocks with high and sustainable dividend yields and below-average valuations. It is geared toward investors who believe a dividend orientation could deliver a total return that outperforms the market over time.

SEI launched a fund that eliminates companies that generate revenue through business relationships with Sudan or Iran. The SEI Screened World Equity Ex-U.S. Fund will invest in securities of foreign issuers located in developed and emerging market countries, excluding companies whose activities directly or indirectly benefit the governments of countries that support terrorism, genocide, or human rights abuse.

Prudential Annuities introduced three turnkey asset allocation investment options for variable annuity clients. The Advanced Series Trust (AST) Academic Strategies Asset Allocation Portfolio and AST Schroders Multi-Asset World Strategies Portfolio incorporate alternative asset classes as part of their core holdings. The third new option, the AST Focus Four Plus Portfolio, provides exposure to four distinct quantitative equity market strategies managed by First Trust Advisors L.P. and exposure to the “core plus” fixed-income strategy of Western Asset Management Company and Western Asset Management Company Limited.

Sumnicht & Associates, LLC, announced the availability of iSectors Post-Modern Portfolio Theory (Post-MPT) asset allocation model, available for investors through RIAs. iSectors offers two Post-MPT Allocation models that provide low correlation to stock and bond markets.

UBS Global Asset Management launched its US Fundamental Equity Market Neutral strategy—one of a relative few market neutral strategies based on fundamental analysis, rather than quantitative analysis. The portfolio is market-, sector-, and factor-neutral, as well as broadly diversified, typically holding between 100 and 150 long positions and between 100 and 200 short positions.

Paradigm Asset Management Co. LLC announced the development of an All Cap Core Opportunistic Strategy created to offer unconstrained exposure to a broad range of investment opportunities by removing style and market-cap limitations.

ETFs

WisdomTree launched the WisdomTree Middle East Dividend Fund (ticker: GULF) on the NASDAQ Stock Market. The exchange-traded fund (ETF) provides investors with exposure to approximately 70 dividend-paying companies listed in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

WealthNotes Capital Management launched an exchange-traded note (ETN) tracking the performance of the S&P 500 130/30 Total Return Strategy Index.

Barclays Bank PLC launched the iPath Global Carbon Exchange Traded Note on the NYSE Arca stock exchange. The new iPath ETNs have a 30-year maturity and are senior, unsecured, unsubordinated debt securities issued by Barclays linked to the performance of a market index.

Barclays Global Investors unveiled four new iShares ETFs to offer exposure to alternative energy and broad exposure to China. The ETFs are: iShares S&P Global Clean Energy Index Fund (ticker: ICLN); iShares S&P Global Nuclear Energy Index Fund (ticker: NUCL); iShares S&P Global Timber & Forestry Index Fund (ticker: WOOD); iShares FTSE China (HK Listed) Index Fund (ticker: FCHI).

PIMCO is planning to offer its first bond ETF that aims to replicate the Lehman Brothers Aggregate Index.

Illustration by David Jien