Caution: Avoid Target Date Fund Oversimplifications

After a quick hiatus in July, we are back and excited about what we have in store! To kick things off, this episode features my conversation with Jeff Holt, CFA and Director, Multi-Asset & Alternative Strategies with Morningstar Research Services and a lead author of the annual Morningstar Target Date Landscape Report.  This is the third time Jeff has been on the podcast and his return does not disappoint.  The broader theme of our conversation was the importance of avoiding oversimplifications when evaluating target date funds.  As you will hear, this ranges from cost, glide path, the classic too vs. through distinction, mutual funds vs. CITs and many more.  With the prevalence of target date funds in workplace retirement plans, I thought this would be a great way to get things going again.   Before we get started, a few tweaks to look forward to going forward.  First, we will provide a transcript on the 401(k) Fridays website for each episode.  Second, also on the website each guest will provide a written answer to a bonus question.  For this specific episode, we have a link to the 2019 Target Date Landscape Report we discussed today.  You can find all this and more by going to www.401kfridays.com/holt2019. If you have any other ideas to improve the podcast please share them with me via email, [email protected].  Guest Bio Jeff Holt, CFA, is director of multi-asset and alternative strategies for Morningstar Research Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. He covers target-date funds and other multi-asset funds from various asset managers. Before joining Morningstar in 2014, Holt spent nearly nine years at Jeffrey Slocum & Associates (since acquired by Pavilion Financial), where he was responsible for investment research to support the firm's defined-contribution practice. He covered target-date funds, stable value funds, and other asset classes specific to defined-contribution clients. Holt holds a bachelor's degree in management, with a concentration in corporate finance, from Brigham Young University. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!