Nevin's Data "Points"

 It’s been fun watching “Coach K” take another team to the Sweet 16 this year—hard to believe he’s been coaching for nearly half a century.  I had the opportunity to see Mike Krzyzewski coach in person just once—and in the not-so-friendly confines of the claustrophobic Cameron Indoor Stadium (no, I was not rooting for Duke). And while he’s had better teams—and Duke’s not on my favorites list—I, for one, won’t be disappointed if he wound up an amazing career by winning it all… again (a sentiment made easier because the teams I was pulling for are no longer in contention). And then there was Tom Brady—who may have had the shortest retirement in NFL history. Rumors notwithstanding, apparently Aaron Rodgers is still willing to keep playing. Presumably both are at least partially motivated by the possibility of hanging up their cleats with another championship ring on their hand—to get “out” at the top of your game.  A  Pew Research Center analysis  o...

It’s hard to believe that just two years ago many of us went into our places of work, packed up, and went home for what most thought would be a week, maybe two—and wound up being a lot more than that. In March 2020, my wife and I had just returned from a funeral in the Boston area. While the worst of what we would come to learn about COVID was—well, yet to be learned—we knew that cautions were in order. So we drove, rather than flew to the event—which wound up being full of strangers (many of whom were in what would come to be acknowledged as “vulnerable” health categories). Throughout we were aware, conscious of a certain risk, but we were not overly cautious—about on the order of what you would do when you come into contact with someone who had a cold.  In hindsight, what might have been a “super spreader” event didn’t turn out to be one—even though less than 48 hours later the governor of the Commonwealth was putting in place lockdowns and restrictions that wo...

 It’s not  all  about “the Benjamins,” but a recent analysis of the nation’s private retirement system certainly puts a lot of emphasis on the accumulation of aggregate assets in retirement plans. The Morningstar report—“ Retirement Plan Landscape Report, An In-Depth Look at the Trends and Forces Reshaping U.S. Retirement Plans ”—is extraordinarily diverse and comprehensive [i]  in its assessment—though while the report’s authors seemed to be striving for a balanced assessment, the overall sense was one of a leaky boat. No Surprises  There were some findings that seemed to surprise the authors that didn’t strike me as all that remarkable. Apparently (I hope you’re sitting down for this one) larger plans pay lower fees (expressed as basis points) than smaller plans. They are also more likely to invest in collective investment trusts (which tend to have lower fees, though that isn’t necessarily the case). What I  did  find surprising was ...

Our industry often seems to treat participants like children who can’t make big decisions—but a recent research paper suggests they might make better choices  if  we expanded their perspective. The paper, intriguingly titled “ Financial Wellness Meets Behavioral Economics ,” highlights a behavioral tendency known as “narrow framing”—basically a tendency to focus on one complex choice, or one element of a complex choice, at a time.  Now, at first blush this seems rational, and perhaps even prudent—but the paper suggests that this kind of linear thinking means that people are inclined to overlook real-life disruptions like financial emergencies—which are not only uncertain with regard to amount or timing, but even in terms of whether they will occur at all. Little wonder, therefore,  that  studies   routinely find that workers say they are ill prepared to come up with the funds to cover some kind of short-term emergency o...