Nevin's Data "Points"

It’s been a stressful week—and it’s not over yet. Over the past 10 days, I’ve managed to survive three college move-ins, an earthquake in our nation’s capital and—with a little luck—a hurricane bearing down on the Northeast even as I write this column. Now, I know it’s summer—Labor Day is only a week off—and there’s a lot looming over our industry’s head, but the fact is, I am—perhaps like many of you—having trouble focusing on anything other than Hurricane Irene. See, we live in a neighborhood that seems particularly prone to losing power, and we’re frequently the last in our town to have it restored—and that’s when we don’t have a hurricane sweeping the Eastern seaboard! It’s bad enough to be without power for several days, but the last time it happened, it was accompanied by some significant rainfall, and we quickly found out (the hard way) that the sump pump that normally keeps that extra water from pouring into our basement requires electricity to function. Fort...

I finally got to the dentist last week. Don’t get me wrong, I like my dentist. The folks there are more than nice, they treat you like an adult (even when you clearly haven’t flossed since your last visit), and they outline options in a way that feels like you actually have a choice (including my personal favorite, “If it’s not bothering you, do nothing”). That said, it had been a ridiculously long time since I had been there. Honestly, I knew it had been a while, but when my dentist pulled out his (detailed) record of my last visit—well, let’s just say I couldn’t believe it had been that long. In fact, I think if I had known how long it had been before I went, I might well have postponed it again, if only to spare myself the embarrassment. Fortunately, despite my extended hiatus, things were in pretty good shape. Sure, the cleaning was more painful than it might have been, but overall, things were better than I had a right to expect. After the market tumult of the pas...

I have watched with increasing interest the growing furor over the Department of Labor’s proposed new fiduciary definition. My first impressions of the proposal were positive: generally speaking, IMHO, the more people who work with ERISA plans that conduct themselves as ERISA fiduciaries, the better. The notion that broadening that standard would serve to “run off” those not as committed to this business bothered me not at all. However, and as is often the case with new regulations, areas of concern began to pop up. Those involved with the valuation of privately held stock in Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) were initially most strident, though the work they do has a tremendous impact on thousands of employer and employee accounts. More recently, and of more interest to many advisers, the Department of Labor’s temerity in bringing IRA accounts under the ERISA fiduciary umbrella has drawn fire from “more than three thousand advisers,” according to the Financial Services I...

The year we began publishing PLANADVISER was a big year in many ways for me – it marked my twentieth wedding anniversary, it was the year my father passed away, the year my eldest went off to college for the first time, and also the year that “catch-up contributions” became an item of more-than-passing interest to me. In recent weeks, I’ve had occasion to think back on those past five years, and all that has transpired – the Pension Protection Act, QDIAs. the back-and-forth on fiduciary advisers, the first wave (and subsequent flurry) of revenue-sharing lawsuits, the growing emphasis on transparency and disclosure, the growth – and questions about – target-date funds, the “normalization” of a fiduciary role for retirement plan advisers, and more recently, the back-and-forth on an expanded fiduciary definition. Like many of you, I can still recall the tumultuous news of September 2008 – all hitting during our PLANADVISER National Conference that year. While it’s fun and interesting to ...