401(k) Roundtable

Guest Bio Joshua Dietch is the group manager of Retirement Thought Leadership in Global Brand Marketing. Joshua is responsible for leading a team of researchers and writers who create retirement thought leadership in support of the firm's workplace retirement, intermediary, and institutional businesses. He also is a vice president of T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. Joshua's investment experience be...

What do current equity valuations and bond yields potentially mean for returns in the coming decade? Today, Rob Arnott, Chairman of Research Affiliates gets out his crystal ball and shares his thoughts. If you have heard Rob on prior episodes of the podcast, you will know he is not shy and doesn't pull any punches. More importantly, he also shares a some good ideas for retirement plans on how they...

At least once a year it makes sense to check in on what our friends at the state run retirement plans are up to. Today, I am happy to have Katie Selenski, the Executive Director of CalSavers, the California State Retirement Plan and Dylan Giambatista, the with the new Vermont or Green Mountain Secure Retirement Plan. Katie shares some encouraging data on what they are seeing thus far from CalSaver...

If you couldn't tell, the COVID pandemic and its impact on the economy, retirement plans and individuals has really gotten me thinking. Along those lines, a recent presentation from this week's return guest, David Blanchett, the head of retirement research for Morningstar's Investment Management group, on Total Economic Worth, struck a chord. A very interesting concept that I felt was very applica...

The financial markets have started the decade on a feverish pace despite a brief pandemic induced bear market. Today, Dr. David Kelly, CFA with J.P. Morgan Asset Management joins me to share his thoughts on where we go from here. As usual he has great insights on what it will take to get some inflation in the economy, what impact new policies from the Biden administration could have on financial m...

Happy New Year! I could not think of a better way to kick off 2021 than with an update from Pete the Planner on the impact of the pandemic on personal finances. Some of what he says you might expect, but the group of employees he feels are at the most risk will likely surprise you. That and a whole lot more are part of our conversation.  As a reminder, if you have been enjoying the podcast please...

Admittedly, when I develop topics and content for the podcast I am generally catering to the mid to large plan market. Today, I am excited to welcome Chad Parks, the Founder & CEO of Ubiquity Retirement + Savings to discuss the world of small retirement plans. As you will hear, Chad brings his years of experience and is not shy to share his perspectives. We talk about everything from how do you de...

If you have stable value investments on your mind, my conversation today with Debbie Vince & Ken Sommers of New York Life should address your questions or concerns. We start with Debbie providing some background on stable value investments, how they work and some pros and cons compared to other cash equivalent options in workplace retirement plans. Then we transition to Ken for his thoughts on the...

Could Retirement Income be the hot topic of 2021? It was supposed to be the hot topic of 2020, then we got a little derailed. To chat through this with be today, I am excited to have Doug McIntoch, Vice President of Investment with Prudential Retirement. We go through all the stuff you would expect us to. What is retirement income, what are the employer attitudes, what are employee attitudes, what...

Today's episode came by request from several listeners, so thank you for that! The topic is retirement plan fees. My guest is Jim Scheinberg, Managing Partner of North Pier Search Consulting and North Pier Fiduciary Management. We started off with some basics on fees, then get into some of the tricker considerations such as how do you charge fees to plan participants, per head or pro-rata, how do...

When it comes to M&A activity in the retirement service provider ecosystem, there has been a lot of activity to say the least. This is something my guest, Dick Darian, the CEO of Wise Rhino Group saw coming and has been actively involved in. During our conversation we hit on a few recent headline grabbing announcements, how the traditional lines between traditional service provider roles continue...

Tis the season for talk about elections and boy do we have that today. To lend some muscle to the conversation I have Nevin Adams with the American Retirement Association. We start at the top of the ticket as they say and discuss how who sits in the White House could impact retirement policy going forward, we hit on what that would mean to the priorities and focus of various government agencies, t...

A few months ago, Vanguard made a significant announcement about the future of their recordkeeping business. To be honest, there was a lot of confusion and questions about the rationale, details and what the future holds for them. To address those and many more questions I am excited to have Dean Edwards, a Principal and Head of Institutional Strategy and Market Leadership with Vanguard join me on...

Hard to believe, but the economic and financial market impact of COVID-19 first materialized about seven months ago. Since then, we have been seen record breaking market volatility, a spike in unemployment, a recession in the U.S. economy, and dramatic changes to daily life and routines. With all that said, how are retirement savers weathering this storm? To share some details, I am excited to wel...

The 401(k) world if nothing else loves its acronyms. Today, I am excited to welcome Alison Cohn, a Partner and attorney with Ferenczy Benefits Law Center to the podcast! Alison brings her quick wit and enthusiasm to a conversation around PEPs, MEPs, and SEPs which can generally be confusing or just plan dull. With new regulations coming online, understanding the differences, pros and cons and deci...

A major challenge for let's call it 40% of the workforce here in the United States is access to a retirement plan at work. Recently, several states have launched retirement plans to help provide more access to workers and close the coverage gap. To discuss this and more, I am happy to welcome back to the podcast, Lisa Massena, Principal at Massena & Associates. During our conversation Lisa shares...

We have talked about Regulation BI and the DOL's Fiduciary Rule before on the podcast, however, it has been a while. Reg BI is now live and the DOL's Fiduciary Rule has been revamped after its prior version was vacated a while back. To share an overview of what each are, the impact on plan sponsors, participants and industry I am happy to welcome Chris Giorgi and Carrol Waddel, both with Empower R...

Is private equity on its way to 401(k) plans? What actually is private equity? How could this work? What is the investment need that is not being filled? We discuss all of this and more with Doug Keller, Head of Private Wealth and Defined Contribution at the private equity firm Pantheon. Coincidentally, Doug and his firm were also one of the private equity firms to request the information letter f...

With the COVID related volatility in the financial markets and the impact on employees and businesses, one question lingering in the back of employers minds has been, am I more likely to be the target of a 401(k) lawsuit now? To answer this and some other topical questions that have come up, I am excited to welcome back Carl Engstrom, a 401(k) plaintiff's attorney with Nichols Kaster. Carl and his...

Recently, there has been a lot of money, trillions of dollars, pumped into the markets and economy. What is the impact on inflation, how could this impact the broader markets, what do near zero interest rates mean? To tackle this and much more, I am happy to welcome back Rich Weiss, a Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, Multi-Asset Strategies for American Century Investments. Rich...

Student debt or student loans has been a hot topic and a challenge for millions for several years now. So much so that employers are now including some type of student loan assistance in their benefits program or even their 401(k) plan. There was also a provision in the CARES Act which addressed what employers can do to help employees who have student debt. To chat about this and more, I am excite...

This week, I am happy to share my conversation with Tom Clark, ERISA Attorney and COO of the Wagner Law Group! Tough to put a nice bow around this one, as we delved into a host of issues retirement plan sponsors face in the wake of COVID and as people start planning for their businesses to reopen. We hit on plan design issues, employee education, fiduciary considerations and much more. Tom has bee...

This week I had a timely conversation with a new guest, Chris Anast, CFA, and Senior Vice President, Senior Retirement Strategist with the Retirement Strategy Group at American Funds, part of Capital Group. We focus mostly on the paper he authored with DCIIA about the " Five Practical Barriers to Better Retirement Outcomes ." Interestingly, this was released shortly after the world was turned on i...

One common question amongst employers during the COVID-19 pandemic has been how their employees have been reacting in their 401(k) plans. To delve through this, I am excited to welcome back Josh Dietch, VP of Retirement Thought Leadership at T. Rowe Price. During our conversation, we hit on a few of the obvious thinks like stats around investment and contribution changes, but quickly delve into so...

Have questions about where the financial markets are today, interested in how things could unfold as the world re-opens? We cover this and more with my guest Frances Donald, a Managing Director, and Global Chief Economist & Global Head of Macroeconomic Strategy for Manulife Investment Management. In her role, Frances forecasts global macroeconomic and financial trends, analyzes the economy and cap...