Research, analysis, and thoughts on retirement investments & the future of personalization
We truly are living in historic times and, from our family to yours, wish nothing but the best as everyone’s health and safety is all that matters right now. The Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has rapidly shut down our economy and put everyone’s health at risk. We recognize that the emergence and spread of the virus has created global uncertainty causing markets to react strongly, which can be unsettling for anyone.
In our Class on Asset Classes post, we laid the framework for the varying exposures that Target Date Funds (TDFS) can hold as underlying investments. Using that as a basis, we can compare the various TDF series and how they differ on various metrics. In this post, we’ll start by looking at how TDFs allocate to U.S. vs. International (Non-U.S.) exposure.
The 4th Quarter of 2019 saw some interesting flow activity into TDFs. While there are many ways to slice and dice the information, we’ll take a look at some interesting highlights below.
Target Date Fund issuers have the right to change their glide path whenever they see fit. It makes the historical and ongoing analysis of the TDF a bit trickier. Sometimes the changes can be rather large and sometimes just nuanced changes. During the 4Q19 quarter we saw a handful of changes, most of which fall in the nuanced camp.
As we march along into 2020, we’ll start reviewing what occurred in the TDF market in the last quarter on 2019. The first aspect we’ll look at is returns.