If you feel that you are not receiving adequate investment advice from your employer’s retirement plan provider, we can manage your 401K, TSA, TSP, Simple Plan or Pension Plan. If your portfolio lost more than 10% in the last recession, you need to take another look at how you are managing risk. Research Financial Strategies can help. We will provide an unbiased review of your 401K and offer advice based on the best potential investment choices available in your plan.
- Jack Reutemann CEO & Founder
Employer Retirement Plan 2nd Opinion
With the uncertainty of stock market fluctuations and the lingering question of when the next bear (down) market may occur, you probably are wondering what to do with your retirement 401K plan investments. Add more to your winners? Take your profits and run? Or do nothing at all? The gravity of making a potentially bad choice can be daunting to most investors. Some weary investors make the mistake of “setting it and forgetting it”. But that level of fiscal avoidance almost always has a negative impact on your portfolio returns. That is why many confused investors are turning to managed accounts in their 401K plans in which they pay a fee to have independent professional investment advisors help make these decisions. This is becoming an ever increasingly popular choice.
Should I Pay Someone To Manage My 401K?
Managed retirement accounts have been proven to offer more value to 401K investors
A recent study by MarketWatch shows that those who used managed accounts earned 3.32 percentage points more on average than do-it-yourselfers NET of fees. That’s probably because of the tendency of investors to chase performance. They become aggressive when the stock market is doing well, and more conservative when the market is down. This ultimately leads investors to buying high and selling low.
Many investors also leave their money in cash, either because it was the default option when they opened their employer 401K and they never changed it or because their unfamiliarity with investing makes them too afraid to do anything else. In fact, the Target Date Retirement mutual funds which have become a staple on most employer sponsored 401K plans were inspired as a default placement for new enrollees. Target Date Funds not only give investors an easy, no research choice but also help reduce the liability claims towards the plan sponsors when they used to use cash as the default choice. But Target Date retirement funds aren’t usually your best choice for maximizing your retirement investment account returns.
Need A Consultant?
We can manage your 401K, TSA, TSP, Simple Plan or Pension Plan. If your portfolio lost more than 10% in the last recession, you need to take another look at how you are managing risk.
Retirement Plan Confusion?
Are Target Date Retirement Funds a good choice?
“Target-date funds don’t necessarily mirror the performance of the larger stock and bond markets. Instead, their returns depend on the mix of their individual portfolios, and in some years, their returns may be very disappointing.” NewYorkTimes.com

Your investment choices most likely will be very limited within a typical employer sponsored 401K plan. You most likely will have access to target-date mutual funds from only a single provider which are the default investment if you choose not to make fund choices. Read More >>

Have you ever thought you’d be happier if you could just pay someone else to do watch your company 401K retirement plan account? Like most other things in life, there is a study that will help you answer that question.
Read More>>

If the majority of fund managers won’t even invest in their own target-date retirement funds….why should you? “More than half of the industry’s target-date series are run by managers who have made no investments in the target-date funds they oversee”.
Read More>>
Recent Financial News
from our Financial Advisors
Market Commentary – September 23, 2019
There’s a new theory in town.Renowned economist Robert Shiller’s new book suggests investors may be able to predict and prepare for economic events by tracking popular stories.Applying the theory might have been a challenge last week. There were so many...
Market Commentary – September 16, 2019
Where’s inflation?If you enjoy searching for Waldo, the visual nemesis in a red-striped sweater and cap, you may appreciate the quandary of central bankers in many wealthy nations. For almost a decade, they’ve been they’ve been trying to find...
Unused Vacation Days Can Be Costly
Would you give up a share of $62 billion?If your answer is no, then you may be a member of the relatively small group of Americans (36 percent) that takes all of the vacation days available to them each year.read more>>
Market Commentary – September 9, 2019
Remember the movie Groundhog Day?Bill Murray’s character is a crotchety newsman who lives the same day over and over again. After exhausting other options, he chooses self-improvement and eventually escapes the cycle.The movie came to mind last week when...
Where There’s a Will, There’s a Plan
Throughout history people have made inheritance choices that are inexplicable to others. In 1926, Harry Houdini left his magical equipment to his brother, his pulled-from-the-hat rabbits to the children of friends, and a series of random words to his wife....
Hope in Humanity
When you turn on the evening news, every broadcast seems to bring more stories of tragedy, fighting, and petty politics. But if we take the time to a look a little closer, we often find that amidst the doom and gloom, people all around the world are...