Fiscal Dominance: How Pension Plan Sponsors May Have to Adapt

Photo credit: Pixabay Buckets of federal spending are swamping conventional inflation fighting tools. What plan sponsors should know. Option A: The increasing price of milk, bacon or a fast-food burger may be common dinner table discussions these days. Not so often do you hear talk of fiscal dominance and yet, the concept holds significant implications…

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Forecasting Equity Returns – What Can I Count On in 2024? Part Three: Smoke and Mirrors Day – A Celebration of Small Caps, Global Funds and Emerging Markets

Photo credit: Pixabay A three-part conversation with Highland Consulting Associates. Over the past several weeks we have been considering what you can expect from investment returns in 2024—or, rather, whether you can count on 2024 predictions at all. We’ve organized this series into three parts (see Part One and Part Two)  to cover the major…

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Forecasting Equity Returns – What Can I Count On in 2024? Part Two: What are the Pieces of the Pie? (And Is Your Pie Getting Smaller?)

Photo credit: Pixabay A three-part conversation with Highland Consulting Associates. In the next several weeks we’ll consider what you can expect from investment returns in 2024—or, rather, whether you can count on 2024 predictions at all. We’ll break this series into three parts to cover the major areas of investment opportunities beginning with historical returns,…

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Glide Path 2023: Do Headwinds Require a Change in the Plan?

The headwinds (and headlines) of 2022 included this: 2022 was a year of volatility and concern over the prospects of a recession in 2023. However, for many defined benefit plans, those headwinds were favorable in the way they affected plan funded status, or the measure of plan assets to meet future obligations. Funded status is…

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