Nevin's Data "Points"

This past week I watched my (now not so) little girl graduate from high school, and just 24 hours before that, this proud papa was beaming at a ceremony where she garnered so many awards, she had trouble carrying them to the car. Just two days later we were driving her to a weekend orientation at the school that will be her new "home" come fall. Now, like most parents of teenagers, we feel that we have been practicing for Jennifer to leave home for some time now. She comes in from work, heads upstairs to do her homework - has to be summoned to meals – and, as soon as she is done ingesting her food, disappears back into her alcove. It's a bit like we are running a bed and breakfast, and she is a guest (except for the part where the innkeepers get paid, of course). In short, we, like our parents before us, have resorted to complaining about how little we see her. Except, of course, for those sporadic outbursts of emotion that inevitably flare up between kids who think ...

I spent last Friday collaborating with a panel of industry “luminaries” as judges (see http://www.principal.com/theprincipal10best/judges.htm ) for Principal’s 10 Best Companies for Financial Security. It’s the third year I have been asked to participate (it’s the fifth year for the program) – and I’m pleased to note that the combination of a bit of experience with the judging process itself, a well-vetted scoring system, and a comprehensive set of background materials compiled by Mathew Greenwald & Associates makes what could be a daunting process manageable. There’s a lot of science in developing the criteria and weightings – but there’s also what might well be termed “art” that manifested itself in the interaction of the judges (which includes two of the previous winners of the award) as we worked our way toward a list of the 10 best. The criteria – a truly robust list of benefits that run the gamut from insurance to health to retirement – all contribute to individual financia...

Time being a relatively precious commodity in my household (particularly this month), we have often favored day trips to longer journeys to more exotic locales. This past weekend, we drove up to Maine for the day – motivated primarily by a desire to share some of our favorite places there with my visiting mother-in-law, but we all draw a lot of pleasure from those trips. On our previous trip to Maine, my youngest decided to be “adventurous” and try lobster for the first time. He not only enjoyed his first taste of Maine lobster, he (and, admittedly, his Dad) derived what some might term an “inordinate” amount of pleasure from his sisters’ aversion to watching him tear into the crustacean – a memory that was, no doubt, not far from his mind as he ordered lobster on this most recent trip. That memory was richly “rewarded” on our recent trip, where not only were his siblings in closer proximity, but at a time of day (lunch, not dinner) when the “details” of the meal were even more evid...

Last week Hewitt Associates published some fascinating results from their 401(k) Index – basically a composite of the activities of some 1.5 million participants for which the Lincolnshire, Illinois-based firm performs recordkeeping services. Over the years – Hewitt has been publishing the results of the index since 1997 – it has been interesting to watch the shifts in contribution allocations, as well as how – and how often – participants reallocate their existing balances. For the past four months, that index has noted a distinct shift to international and emerging market offerings by participants who made transfers (admittedly a small number of the total – see Xfers Continue To Have International Flavor ). However, last week’s report noted that, in plans that offer emerging market equity funds (only about one in ten plans in Hewitt’s database do), among participants with any balances in emerging market equity funds, the average allocation is 16.4%. Now, it seems to me that that’s ...