401(k) Changes

For people here who are plugged into the TAG 401(k) Plan, we have some changes dialed into the mix. (Everybody else, skip this post.) ...

In our quest to improve the mix of funds, effective June 1 we will be:

1) Dropping the Mass Mutual Destination Series funds (age-based retirement dates) and replacing them with the Vanguard Target Date Series. The Vanguard funds are not only more cost efficient, they track market benchmarks more closely than the Mass Mutual funds. (Added to which, the Mass Mutual Destination Funds have been under-performing of late.)

2) We’re eliminating the Oppenheimer Small and Mid Cap Value Fund and the Oppenheimer Main Street Small Cap Fund. Both of these funds have under-performed funds of the same type over the past nine months. We’ll be replacing them with the Allianz NFJ SCV Fund, and the Gabelli SCG fund, respectively.

3) We’ll be eliminating the American Funds World Bond Fund and the Premier Inflation Protected Bond Fund (funds for each transferred to PIMCO Total Return Fund), as well as the NASDAQ 100 Fund (money there going to Select Indexed Equity) and the MRS International New Discovery and International Equity Index (both charting to American Funds Euro Pacific).

The Plan Trustees, after months of review, felt that these funds were a) duplicative of better funds offered by the Plan, and b) outside our core mission of offering a simpler, diversified offering of different asset groups.

Lastly, if you have money in any of the dropped funds, it will be automatically transferred to the same type of core funds that remain in the Plan. (Money in the Select NADAQ 100 will transfer to the Plan's S & P 500 Fund.)

We now return to teh regular blogging.