TAG 401(k) Plan Changes

Regarding America's favorite retirement plans, the Wall Street Journal tells us:

... Participants in 401(k) plans ended 2012 with less than half of their assets invested in stocks, down from 59% at the end of 2006, Chicago-based Spectrem Group reported on Tuesday. That's despite the fact that the S&P 500 stock index rose 6.4% over that period and has more than doubled since it hit bottom in March 2009.

"The population of participants has really remained a little more conservative and really hasn't benefited as much ... (as non-retirement investors) ... from the economic and stock market rallies of the last couple of years," said George H. Walper, Jr., president of Spectrem Group, a market research firm. ...

I spent Thursday afternoon barricaded in a Disney conference room with other trustees of the Animation Guild 401(k) Plan where we mapped out some new alterations to the Plan ...

1) The trustees of the Guild's plan have hired a new 401(k) advisor whose mission will be to get as many new cost efficiencies into the Plan as possible.

2) Trustees have voted to move to the lowest-cost share classes of the mutual funds on the TAG 401(k) Plan platform. (Actively managed stock funds, index stock funds, and SAGIC's bond fund.)

3) Plan administrative costs will become more equitable across the board. Instead of some participants paying large administrative fees and others paying none, starting July 1st costs will be shared by everyone on a pro rata basis.

(What does this mean in the real world? That fees will go up a few basis points for people in Vanguard index funds -- which now pay zero fees. For other funds, costs will go down ... or remain the same.)

More detailed information as it develops.