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A target date fund (TDF), also known as a lifecycle fund, dynamic-risk fund, or age-based fund, is a collective investment scheme, often a mutual fund or a collective trust fund, designed to provide a simple investment solution through a portfolio whose asset allocation mix becomes more conservative as the target date (usually retirement) approaches. [1]
Target-date funds were invented by Donald Luskin and Larry Tint [2] of Wells Fargo Investment Advisors (later Barclays Global Investors(BGI)), and first introduced in the early 1990s by BGI. [3] Their popularity in the US increased significantly in recent years due in part to the auto-enrollment legislation Pension Protection Act of 2006 that created the need for safe-harbor type Qualifying Default Investment Alternatives, such as target-date funds, for 401(k) savings plans. With the UK enacting auto-enrollment legislation in 2012, target-date funds are used by the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), and are expected to become increasingly popular as their design should satisfy the DWP's eligible default fund criteria. [4]
A similar approach, called age-based asset allocation, was proposed by Mark Kantrowitz in the mid-1990s and was rapidly adopted by all 529 college savings plans. [5]
Target-date funds are aimed at people planning for retirement and have appeal because they offer a lifelong managed investment strategy that should remain appropriate to an investor's risk profile even if left unreviewed. Research suggests that age is by far the most important determinant in setting an investment strategy, thus Target Date, or age-based funds are particularly attractive as default investment funds. [6] They do not offer a guaranteed return but offer a convenient multi-asset retirement savings strategy through a single outcome-oriented fund. [7]
Target-date funds' asset allocation mix typically provides exposure to return-seeking assets, such as equities, in early years when risk capacity is higher, and becomes increasingly conservative as time progresses with exposure switched progressively towards capital-preservation assets, such as government- and index-linked bonds. [8]
The speed with which a target date fund de-risks its asset allocation is known in the industry as the "glide-path", using the analogy of an airplane (the fund, presumably) coming in for a landing (the landing being, presumably, arriving at the Target Date with the appropriately low-risk mix of underlying assets).
By taking a managed, or stochastic, approach to de-risking the fund, target-date funds offer a higher level of both technical and fiduciary care than earlier lifestyling techniques that rely on an automated, or deterministic, approach. [9] [10]
The theoretical underpinnings to glidepath design are based on combining modern portfolio theory, with the theory of "Human Capital", the present value of expected future earnings. [11]
The strategic asset allocation model over time is known as the glidepath illustrating how an investment strategy becomes increasingly conservative over time towards the target date. An example of a glidepath for a selection of savings strategies for the UK market is shown in the above graphic. Generally, each fund's managements provide different glidepaths depending upon the end requirement of each client (a lump sum for withdrawal or an income producing portfolio for income drawdown), in terms of different target dates.
Target Date Funds are commonly used as default funds as they make it easier for savers to select a savings strategy. This reduces the risk of inferior outcomes that behavioral tendencies might create.
According to 2016 research study of retirement plan participants, 74% of respondents would like to see more socially responsible investments in their retirement plan offerings and most (78%) believe it is important to make the world a better place while growing their personal assets. [12]
A 2016 Survey of Defined Contribution Plan Participants found that 71% of millennial-age investors would be "more willing to contribute to their retirement plan if they knew their investments were doing social good". The survey also finds 84% of millennials want their "investments to reflect their personal values" and 77% want more socially responsible investments in their retirement planning. [13] [14]
In the US, the use of Target Date Funds accelerated from 2006 onwards with the introduction of automatic-enrollment pensions legislation, where the convenience of a single 'fund for life' made them the most popular type of default strategy. Since that, time TDF assets under management have grown more than 10x reaching $763 billion at end 2015. [15] As of March 2020, assets in target-date mutual funds and collective investment trusts (CITs) totaled approximately $1.9 trillion. [16] At the end of 2020, target-date assets in CITs reached $1.18 trillion according to data from Morningstar. Target-date mutual funds held $1.57 trillion. [17] [18]
The main Target Date Benchmarks in the US are:
S&P Target Date Indices [19] Dow Jones Target Date Indices [20] Morningstar Lifetime Allocation Indexes [21]
Major TDF managers in the United States include Fidelity, Vanguard, T. Rowe Price, BlackRock (which manages the "Lifecycle Funds" – the target-date funds within the US Government Thrift Savings Plan), Principal Funds, Wells Fargo Advantage, American Century, and Northern Trust.
Note that the actual sizes of the books of different managers are difficult to estimate, as many hold assets in vehicles other than mutual funds. Northern Trust, for example, uses Collective Trust Funds (CTFs), which typically do not figure in Morningstar or Bloomberg estimates of AUM.
In the UK, the use of Target Date Funds is gaining traction, with the first launch in 2003, and current AUM estimated to be approximately £4.0bn. [22] This is expected to increase with the advent of automatic enrolment pensions legislation.
Major TDF managers in the UK include:
Retail: Architas BirthStar (managed by AllianceBernstein), Fidelity
Institutional: AllianceBernstein, BirthStar, BlackRock, Fidelity, JPMorgan, NEST, State Street Global Advisers
According to independent research, TDFs are expected to grow from a low base to 17% of all UK Defined Contribution (DC) default assets by 2023. [23] Multi-employer pensions schemes (also known as 'master trusts') are amongst the early adopters of Target Date Funds in the UK market.
BlackRock Master Trust: BlackRock Lifepath Target Date Funds [24]
Carey Workplace Pension Trust: BirthStar Target Date Funds [25]
Intelligent Money: IM Optimum Portfolios [26] Intelligent Money provides Target Date Portfolios (rather than Funds).
Lighthouse Pensions Trust: BirthStar Target Date Funds [27]
Target Date Benchmarks in the UK are:
FTSE UK DC Benchmarks [28]
The funds are not without their critics, who point to the unexpected volatility of some near-dated target-date funds in the financial crisis of 2007–2008, suggesting they were not as conservatively positioned as their name would imply. [29] While this is expected in the earlier phases of capital accumulation, [30] it was unexpected at the money-market and bond stage of near-dated funds. In response to this, the SEC and DoL hosted a joint hearing on Examining Target Date Funds in June 2009, [31] which found that while target-date funds were generally a welcome innovation, disclosure had to be improved to ensure investors were fully aware of a target-date fund glidepath, which may differ from manager to manager. The rules on disclosures for target-date funds were published by the SEC in 2010. [32]
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as short selling, leverage, and derivatives. Financial regulators generally restrict hedge fund marketing to institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and accredited investors.
Passive management is an investing strategy that tracks a market-weighted index or portfolio. Passive management is most common on the equity market, where index funds track a stock market index, but it is becoming more common in other investment types, including bonds, commodities and hedge funds.
A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any program, fund, or scheme which provides retirement income.
An index fund is a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to follow certain preset rules so that it can replicate the performance ("track") of a specified basket of underlying investments. While index providers often emphasize that they are for-profit organizations, index providers have the ability to act as "reluctant regulators" when determining which companies are suitable for an index. Those rules may include tracking prominent indexes like the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average or implementation rules, such as tax-management, tracking error minimization, large block trading or patient/flexible trading strategies that allow for greater tracking error but lower market impact costs. Index funds may also have rules that screen for social and sustainable criteria.
A mutual fund is an investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV in Europe and open-ended investment company (OEIC) in the UK.
An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund and exchange-traded product, i.e. they are traded on stock exchanges.
The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is a defined contribution plan for United States civil service employees and retirees as well as for members of the uniformed services. As of December 31, 2021, TSP has approximately 6.5 million participants, and more than $827.2 billion in assets under management; it is the largest defined contribution plan in the world. The TSP is administered by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, an independent agency.
Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institutions, such as insurance companies, pension funds, corporations, charities, educational establishments, or private investors, either directly via investment contracts/mandates or via collective investment schemes like mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or REITs.
A "fund of funds" (FOF) is an investment strategy of holding a portfolio of other investment funds rather than investing directly in stocks, bonds or other securities. This type of investing is often referred to as multi-manager investment. A fund of funds may be "fettered", meaning that it invests only in funds managed by the same investment company, or "unfettered", meaning that it can invest in external funds run by other managers.
Asset allocation is the implementation of an investment strategy that attempts to balance risk versus reward by adjusting the percentage of each asset in an investment portfolio according to the investor's risk tolerance, goals and investment time frame. The focus is on the characteristics of the overall portfolio. Such a strategy contrasts with an approach that focuses on individual assets.
Style investing is an investment approach in which securities are grouped into categories, and portfolio allocation is based on selection among "styles" rather than among individual securities.
A defined contribution (DC) plan is a type of retirement plan in which the employer, employee or both make contributions on a regular basis. Individual accounts are set up for participants and benefits are based on the amounts credited to these accounts plus any investment earnings on the money in the account. In defined contribution plans, future benefits fluctuate on the basis of investment earnings. The most common type of defined contribution plan is a savings and thrift plan. Under this type of plan, the employee contributes a predetermined portion of his or her earnings to an individual account, all or part of which is matched by the employer.
Liability-driven investment policies and asset management decisions are those largely determined by the sum of current and future liabilities attached to the investor, be it a household or an institution. As it purports to associate constantly both sides of the balance sheet in the investment process, it has been called a "holistic" investment methodology.
Socially responsible investing (SRI), social investment, sustainable socially conscious, "green" or ethical investing, is any investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social/environmental good to bring about social change regarded as positive by proponents. Socially responsible investments often constitute a small percentage of total funds invested by corporations and are riddled with obstacles.
Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) is a Canadian Crown corporation and institutional investor established to manage several public funds and pensions headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta. AIMCo was established by an act of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in 2008 under the government of Progressive Conservative Premier Ed Stelmach.
The National Pension System (NPS) is a defined-contribution pension system in India regulated by Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) which is under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Finance of the Government of India. National Pension System Trust was established by PFRDA as per the provisions of the Indian Trusts Act of 1882 for taking care of the assets and funds under this scheme for the best interest of the subscriber.
At retirement, individuals stop working and no longer get employment earnings, and enter a phase of their lives, where they rely on the assets they have accumulated, to supply money for their spending needs for the rest of their lives. Retirement spend-down, or withdrawal rate, is the strategy a retiree follows to spend, decumulate or withdraw assets during retirement.
Dedicated portfolio theory, in finance, deals with the characteristics and features of a portfolio built to generate a predictable stream of future cash inflows. This is achieved by purchasing bonds and/or other fixed income securities that can and usually are held to maturity to generate this predictable stream from the coupon interest and/or the repayment of the face value of each bond when it matures. The goal is for the stream of cash inflows to exactly match the timing of a predictable stream of cash outflows due to future liabilities. For this reason it is sometimes called cash matching, or liability-driven investing. Determining the least expensive collection of bonds in the right quantities with the right maturities to match the cash flows is an analytical challenge that requires some degree of mathematical sophistication. College level textbooks typically cover the idea of “dedicated portfolios” or “dedicated bond portfolios” in their chapters devoted to the uses of fixed income securities.
An investment fund is a way of investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These advantages include an ability to:
The Smart Savings Act made the default investment in the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) an age-appropriate target date asset allocation investment fund instead of the Government Securities Investment Fund.