Target Date Retirement Funds: Morningstar Shares Insights For Retirement Plan Fiduciaries

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Target Date Funds (TDFs) have grown exponentially within the last few years. As a retirement plan fiduciary, it's important to understand not only what a TDF is but how to evaluate them and ensure the strategy you have chosen or might be considering is a good fit for your plan.  During my conversation with Jeff we provide some core concepts such as glide path construction, too vs. through retirement and open vs. closed architecture design to see if they are still relevant.  We also hit hot topics such as if the active vs. index investing conversation impacts TDFs, the ever popular topic of investment fees and the perils of looking the performance of TDFs in a vacuum. Finally, we provide retirement plan committee members and plan fiduciaries several important questions to consider at your next retirement committee or plan review meeting.     Guest Bio Jeff Holt, CFA, is an associate director on Morningstar's manager research team. He focuses primarily on multiasset strategies from asset managers including Fidelity, BlackRock, and Principal.    Before joining Morningstar in 2014, Holt spent nearly nine years at Jeffrey Slocum & Associates, 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 workplace retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over seventy prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!