Target Funds: To or Through
Posted on September 18th, 2011 at 4:16 PM
By: Craig L. Israelsen, Ph.D.
How do you decide when it's the right time to say goodbye to a client's target-date funds - when they reach the specified year or all the way through the retirement years?
The issue is at the heart of the "to versus through" debate. Sime target-date funds have an asset allocation model, or glidepath, that is dynamic until it reaches the target date (the year 2020, for example). At that point, the glidepath becomes static at its most conservative allocation. This is a "to" fund, meaning it glides gynamically over time until it reaches and then becomes a fixed allocated fund.