Nevin's Data "Points"

Whoever said ignorance was bliss surely wasn’t talking about fiduciary litigation. While I’ve had the opportunity over the past decade and change to peruse plenty of filings and findings related to excessive fee suits, the recent amended filing in a case against New York University (NYU) included something new – a long list of statements and acknowledgements by plan fiduciaries that, according to the plaintiffs, “displayed an alarming lack of understanding of basic terms and principles in investment management and fiduciary best practices.” Indeed, one of the plan committee members was called out for their “remarkable unawareness of basic facts” relating to the plan. Now, one must take care in accepting the assertions in litigation at face value, and it’s too early to say if they – along with a response by the defendants – will carry the day with a judge. Still, it’s hard, more than a decade after the first of the so-called excessive fee cases were filed, to believe ...

Earlier this year I went to an event in our nation’s capital called “Awesome Con.” As event names go, it’s a bit corny, but if it evokes a reference to Comic-Con, well that’s the point. Awesome Con is a mixture of cosplay (dressing up like your favorite comic book, gaming, or anime characters), celebrity meet-and-greets, and forums where like-minded individuals can not only learn, but debate plot lines, scientific trends that affirm (or refute) science fiction, and sit in on panels by some of the industry’s leading minds (and artists). No, I didn’t dress up – but I very much enjoyed getting to meet (and get autographs from) Marvel Comic’s Stan the Man Lee (see photo), Doctor #10 (David Tennant), and Eliza Dushku (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame), among others). To be honest, I didn’t attend my first – the first – 401(k) Summit with that kind of anticipation. I had accepted an invitation to speak at an event – not that unusual – but at what was then a pretty unusu...

You have to wonder what the Wall Street Journal has against automatic enrollment. The latest instance of finding the cloud in this silver lining arose in a recent Journal article by Anne Tergesen, “ Downside of Automatic 401(k) Savings: More Debt ” (subscription required). The article, based on the findings of a recent academic study , says that automatic enrollment has “pushed” millions of people who weren’t previously saving for retirement into those plans – but quickly cautions that “many of these workers appear to be offsetting those savings over the long term by taking on more auto and mortgage debt than they otherwise would have.” This “crowding out” concern – that automatic enrollment would stretch already strained financial resources, particularly among lower-income workers – has long been a sticking point for those advocating caution regarding automatic enrollment. The Study So did the study – drawn based on what the researchers termed a “natural experim...