Your Retirement Journey: Why Target Date Funds Fall Short

By Phil Matalucci

The content below is a response to this article in Barron’s.

Would you feel comfortable with one-third of your 401k being invested in international stocks? How about shifting towards a more conservative allocation when your retirement goals call for more growth? For many investors, these are some of the unintentional consequences of holding a target date fund: an allocation that doesn’t fit for you, your goals, and your withdrawal strategy. The ‘set it and forget it’ schema of target date funds has often been a popular choice for investors looking to passively save for the future without much effort.

Here’s the problem: your retirement portfolio decisions are being made by ‘some professional somewhere’ in a one-size-fits-all format that is supposed to hopefully provide ‘good enough’ outcomes for millions of other investors retiring around the same age as you. From our experience, while there are certainly common trends for retirees, everyone has different retirement goals and a slightly different tax-efficient withdrawal strategy to provide for those goals. And their investment management strategy should reflect that.

The volatility of financial markets over the past two years emphasizes the importance of working with an advisor on an ongoing basis, and hopefully one that is equipped to make portfolio adjustments on your behalf that consider both the market conditions and your own personal financial plan.

At Amplius – our opinion is that target date funds check the box of being ‘invested,’ but their one-size-fits-all approach does not fit for the goals of many of its investors. Working with an independent fiduciary has never been easier for receiving customized investment advice on all assets [such as 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, profit sharing plans, supplemental executive retirement plans, and other non-qualified deferred compensation plans], and through our third-party provider Pontera we are able to ‘reach in’ and make tactical portfolio updates to our clients’ portfolios as it fits their needs.

This is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase any security or investment product or services. The content is provided solely for your personal use and shall not be deemed to provide access to any particular transaction or investment opportunity. Amplius Wealth Advisors, LLC does not intend the information to be investment advice, and the information should not be relied upon to make an investment decision. Any third-party information contained herein was prepared by sources deemed to be reliable but is not guaranteed.