Retirement Planning Blog

It seems that the good times of the Target date funds are still on. Like its previous quarter, target date funds have again given stellar results in the third quarter. Of the 319 funds, the average target maturity fund gave a return of 14.3 percent during the quarter, comparing to a 15.6 percent growth for S&P Index. Target date funds play a major role in the planned retirement ages of the investors. In the course of time, these funds automatically regulate their mix of stocks, bonds and other holdings and create the risk profile for the investors that suits their changing age. And this is exactly the reason why the target date funds have become hugely popular as default option in the 401(k) plans of a number of employers.

In the second quarter, the target date funds saw a growth of 15.5 percent, comparing to 15.9 percent gain for S&P 500. However, due to an extensive meltdown of equity prices, the funds saw continuous declines in the past six quarters. As these funds have been designed for the retirement accounts, hence a number of critics became vociferous against the funds and opined that the funds should have been more cautiously managed.

The funds have about 12 existing maturity target years, which have been created in five-year increments for the investors turning 65 in a particular target year. The oldest as well as the most conservatively invested is the 2000 group of funds. On the other hand, the 2055 group of funds is for those who are going to start their career. It can be mentioned here that the 2055 group of funds gave a return of 17.5 percent, comparing to 9.8 percent by the 2000 group.

Finally coming to the funds for the younger investor, which invest greatly in stocks and other asset classes that give higher returns. These holdings have a good track record and have consistently outperformed other investments. However, they carry higher risk as well. During the third quarter, the best performer was the real estate holdings of target maturity funds with a return of 33.3 percent, followed by U.S. small-company value stocks with a return of 22.7 percent and emerging market stocks with a return of 21 percent. On the other hand, by contact, the U.S. short-term bonds gave a return of only 1.4 percent. The Treasury Inflation Protected Securities gave a return of 3.1 percent, while the U.S. longer-tern bonds gave a return of 3.7 percent.