November 4, 2021-Following the worst monthly return since the COVID recovery, both domestic and international equities rebounded nicely in the month of October. This strong equity bounce was welcome news as supply chain bottlenecks and poor economic data dominated the headlines for the month of September. Although these same concerns are certainly still relevant in the short to intermediate term, investor optimism has equities trading near new all-time highs as Q3 earnings season is underway.

October 8, 2021-October is upon us once again and, at least as far as the equity markets are concerned, one might say we can expand on our metaphor of the Summer Doldrums, which we talked about at length in our July market commentary, with this period being one of tempestuous seas of volatility and uncertainty.

September 7, 2021-Despite several negative headlines for the month of August, equities continued their upward trend and closed with yet another strong performance month. The S&P 500 index ended the month of August up 3.04% while the more tech heavy NASDAQ Index finished up 4.09%.

San Mateo, Ca. & Watkinsville, Ga., August 12, 2021 – Franklin Templeton today announced that it has engaged Stadion, an independent firm focused on delivering personalized participant account solutions in the advisor sold defined contribution market, to provide technology and consulting services to support Franklin Templeton’s Goals Optimization Engine (GOE), which offers personalized investment solutions to retirement plan participants.

Ah, the summer doldrums. One doesn't have to look far to find nautical parlance being adopted by participants in financial markets.

Overall, Target Date Fund (TDF) investors experienced positive returns for a second straight quarter.

June 9, 2021-May 2021 was a somewhat volatile month. Markets moved higher early in the month, but then reversed and appeared destined to go lower. We were reminded of the old stock market/investing adage that one should "Sell in May and go away". Like most "investing wisdom" this may have had some validity at one point, but like all things with investing, it's probably worth at least a cursory examination before believing it to the point where it becomes a cornerstone of investment strategy.

There's a plethora of different glidepaths within the target date fund (TDF) industry. Issuers create the path of their choosing based on many different factors. Along with this, issuers also have the right to change the glidepath whenever they want. These changes can be wholesale glidepath changes or more fringe-type changes. While some quarters see no changes within the industry, in 1Q21 there were a handful, possibly corresponding with year-end reviews by the individual issuers.

May 18, 2021-Stadion Money Management, an independent managed account provider that offers personalized retirement services to plan sponsors and their participants, announced the launch of Stadion Technology. Stadion will now offer its retirement managed account technology to asset managers and advisory firms to power their ability to offer managed accounts to retirement plans.

May 4, 2021-Enthusiasm for stocks remains extremely high, with individual investors holding more equities than ever before. This high-spiritedness appears fueled by a robust earnings season, the prospect of a post pandemic economic recovery, and additional stimulus checks which have helped bolster not only household earnings but also savings.