Retirement Plan Committee

Fiduciary Corner / Recession Talk

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” – William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Yesterday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its first GDP estimate for Q1, revealing a – 0.28% contraction. The report appears to blame the Trump Tariffs, citing a surge in imports as companies stockpiled ahead of the levies. But this narrative does more harm than good. First, this front-running of tariffs is a one-time effect, leaving doubt as to potential effects going forward. Second,…

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Fiduciary Corner / Better than Dramamine

“The key to making money in stocks is to not get scared out of them.” – Peter Lynch The S&P 500 finished the quarter down 4.3% and down less than 10% from its February high. This might seem surprising given the headline news. And while Fidelity’s Peter Lynch is undoubtedly right, staying calm is a lot harder when you are investing your own money! The math is simple but the intuition is not. An example: Stock A: returns +50% in…

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Fiduciary Corner / Trust the Sciences

This quarter’s theme is based on Newton’s First Law of Motion which states “an object will remain at rest or in motion at a constant speed and direction unless an outside force acts upon it.” There are two critical elements in focus: force and speed. While the law applies to physics, it can also be loosely applied to finance. When we discuss inflation, for example, we are specifically addressing the rate of change (speed) in prices. To forecast (rather than…

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Fiduciary Corner / Not Your Grandfather’s Strong Economy

Each month, we provide a brief look at various parts of the market or economy. As I prepared for this month’s newsletter, I spent time reviewing our past reports and noticed something important: we seem like contrarians. While I am not going to break the trend, I would like to stress that we are not contrarians but rather prefer to focus our communications on subjects you may not be reading elsewhere. Case in point: This week, the government released the…

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New Year’s Resolution for 2025: Strengthen Your Fiduciary Process

As we step into 2025, it’s the perfect time to reflect, refocus, and resolve to enhance the governance of your company’s 401(k) plan. If you’re a member of your company’s 401(k) retirement committee, one of your top resolutions for the new year should be to review and strengthen your fiduciary process. Why? Because ensuring your fiduciary responsibilities are met is not just about compliance—it’s about protecting your committee, your plan, and your employees’ futures. 2025 Resolution: Review Your Fiduciary Process…

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Fiduciary Corner / Compensated Risk

December was a tough month for the stock market with the S&P 500 falling -2.38%. However, for the year, the S&P 500 returned just over 25%, nearly matching the prior year’s 26% return. And as the Wall Street Journal notes, this is the best two-year performance in a quarter century. If we extend the lookback period to three years and include the market selloff of 2022, investors still earned an average of nearly 9% per year. Download PDF

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Fiduciary Corner / Caution Flag

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future” – Yogi Berra Mainstream economic theory has taken a beating in recent years. Sophisticated tools (rules) that were developed to forecast relatively small changes in economic conditions have been unreliable with the extreme changes the world has faced since the onset of COVID. For instance, the Index of Leading Economic Indicators has been flashing a recession warning since late 2021, a period where the US experienced strong economic growth. In our…

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Fiduciary Corner / Spooky Narratives

Long time readers of our newsletter know that we are not fond of market narratives – stories built on an ounce of truth and a pound of nonsense. They are the modern equivalent of ghost stories… but for old(er) people. The latest narrative involves rising interest rates in the US. The story tellers begin with a 6-week chart showing rapidly rising rates and they tie the rise in rates to a new fear of fiscal deficits and tariffs. This is…

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Fiduciary Corner / The Economic Machine

Last month’s Recession Watch newsletter highlighted VISA’s credit card activity index to get a sense of how the consumer is faring. This month, we take a higher-level view of spending and explain why bank lending is critical for economic growth. The chart compares the most recent lending data vs levels seen just prior to the COVID crisis. Total lending is currently growing at a 2.5% annual rate versus 4.7% pre-COVID. More importantly, consumer credit card lending is the only segment…

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Phone: 412-417-6645

In the News

National Association of Plan Advisors (NAPA) has named Comperio Retirement Consulting one of the Top DC Advisor Teams for seven consecutive years: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025

 

Comperio Retirement Consulting has been named one of the largest 100 Investment Consultants in the United States according to Pension & Investments (P&I) for the past 7 years