Compass Investors in the News
On TV
BNC Live--
The New Norm: Pandemic Retirements
July 26, 2021--Compass Investors president Kevin Coppola is interviewed about his perspective on workers being forced to retire early during the Covid 19 pandemic. "Having finances in order and being prepared for the long-term was highlighted during the pandemic." In a 5 minute spot the show explores the "wake-up" call that we have been given to position oneself to mitigate financial stress. Click here to watch.
Real Money, Al Jazeera America--
401(k) Trades
December 2, 2003--Compass Investors is featured on the Real Money nightly show focusing on "real financial issues and actionable solutions." In a 5 minute spot the show explores the pros and cons of taking an active role in trading a 401(k) plan. While over 5 hours of interviews was boiled down into a few minutes of focus, the fact that national attention is now being paid to taking an active role, versus the traditional passive one, is compelling. Click here to watch.
On the Web
Wealth Wednesdays--
[Retirement] How A Few Minutes & A Few Dollars A
Month Can Give You Money For Life!
NOVEMBER 18, 2021 – Stacey Tisdale, an award winning TV broadcast financial journalist and financial behavior expert, interviews Kevin Coppola in advance of a webinar highlighting the essential nature of improved investment returns on a secure retirement.
As Compass Investors' president and founder Kevin Coppola states in the article, "When you look at the social and economic realities of the day, particularly the fact that we are living so much longer, you could do everything �right' and still not be able to save enough for retirement."
Click to see the complete article. Click to see edited version.
Publications
Breaking the Rules to Reach Retirement Goals
NOVEMBER 17, 2015 – A Compass Investors' subscriber was interviewed in an article that appears in Black Enterprise magazine in their Wealth for Life section. In the interview, the subscriber describes her and her husband's disappointment with traditional investing guidance and their success story after having started with Compass Investors. Through the normal unexpected ups-and-downs of life, she outlines in specific detail how Compass Investors ultimately gave her "the peace of mind that comes from knowing that whatever the future holds, they are financially secure."
As Compass Investors' president and founder states in the article, "When you look at the social and economic realities of the day, particularly the fact that we are living so much longer, you could do everything �right' and still not be able to save enough for retirement...I want to be able to provide income forever, if possible, and you can do that by growing your accounts large enough and then putting them into guaranteed vehicles that will pay you interest —everything that you would have been getting from your salary."
Click to see the complete article. JULY 15, 2015 –
Compass Investors' president was recently interviewed and quoted
in an article that appears today in the Personal Finance section
of US News & World Report. During an interview with
Joanne Cleaver, a noted freelance financial reporter, Mr. Coppola highlights the increasing
need for plan participants to set proper expectations regarding
the results of any form of any set-it-and-forget-it style of
investing, such as the very popular Target Date Funds. He
further encourages retirees to maintain market exposure in some
portion of their investments to provide for their financially
secure retirement. "If you want a passive investment, understand that the
results may not be what you need," Coppola says. "Autopilot
comes with a cost, and it may be more than you have been led to
believe. If you still want to use a target-date fund, then put
some of your money into it, and also take a portion of your
portfolio and invest it responsively to what the market is
doing. Create your own safety net that will break through the
investment return barrier that you'll be locked into in the
fund."
Click to see the complete article. JANUARY 9, 2015 –
Compass Investors was features in the Business & Finance
section of the January 2015 issue of The Suit
magazine. During an interview with Compass Investors'
president Kevin Coppola, Mr. Coppola highlights the increasing
need for plan participants to take back control of their 401(k)
and other retirement savings vehicles and cautions the reader
about assuming they can "save their way to retirement income
security." When subscribers receive each HORIZON Action Report, Coppola
says it takes just a few minutes to adjust their portfolio. The
program is targeted at people "who want to be more involved in
managing their assets and provide retirement income security for
themselves and their families," he said. "Because HORIZON is
self-managed," Coppola added, "the customer is always in control
of the investment decision. We don't manage the account for them
and we don't collect any sensitive financial information. This
isn't about maximizing "money under management." We are
providing the analysis, tools and instructions as aids for
anyone looking for real financial security."
Click to see the complete article.
(Click
here for the digital print edition) SEPTEMBER 7-8, 2013 –
Mentioned on the front page of the Business & Finance
section of the Wall Street Journal, highlights
several services available and designed to help investors
prepare for the several decades of retirement providing the
"buyer beware" caution necessary for individuals to consider
prior to deciding to use one of the services. Of the 3 firms mentions, Compass
Investors received the majority of the discussion and research,
concluding "There seems to be little doubt about how well
subscribers to the 401(k) trading service from Compass Investors
have fared." Mr. Zweig's thorough analysis of the
information provided on the HORIZON website has resulted in a
vastly improved and more transparent discussion of how the
service works and how performance is reported.
Click to see the complete article. NOVEMBER 6, 2012, Chicago, IL
– Appearing in the November/December 2012 issue of PSCA's national
magazine, Insights, this article discusses the dangers of
a reliance on Modern Portfolio Theory and what plan sponsors and
plan participants can do about it. A quantifiable definition of
"true" Retirement Income Security (RIS) is presented as the "new
standard" when planning for a successful retirement. Benchmark and
actual result comparisons are provided between a traditional asset
allocation approach and an Adaptive Asset Allocation™ approach. Articles written and innovations by the Compass Institute have
appeared in several publications as noted below.
OCTOBER 12, 2016,
Kenilworth, IL
– On October 1, Investment Strategy Research Group, The
Compass Institute, released to the public a comprehensive
retirement outlook calculator, named YOUR COMPASS, free of
charge. Many such calculators have recently appeared as the
crisis in retirement savings has received more news coverage.
Fidelity, which hosts more 401(k) accounts than any other
brokerage service, has recently introduced a comprehensive
retirement planning suite for its clients, but according to The
Institute's president Kevin Coppola, "our new calculator
contains the full array of components of Fidelity's multi-page
calculator in a compact and more user-friendly interface." YOUR
COMPASS (www.YourCompass.Compass-Institute.org)
adds to the traditional array of inputs (current salary, savings
balance, and investment return) a number of preferences missing
from standard interview-style calculators. Specifically, it
makes clear the impact of investment return on overall
retirement savings. While Fidelity's interview includes a tab to
estimate performance according to unspecified market conditions
(e.g. "average"), the Compass Institute calculator includes
specific inputs for pre- and post-retirement expectations of
investment return, rate of inflation, desired replacement
percentage of final salary. Most important, users can apply all
these inputs to select a variety of investment styles, from
Target Date funds to Compass's Adaptive Asset Allocation™
strategy..
Click to see the complete article. MAY 1, 2014,
Kenilworth, IL
– Compass Investors, an investment analysis and research firm providing fund reallocation model
portfolios to maximize performance for 401(k) retirement plan participants at more than 40 major corporations
and mutual fund investors at 11 mutual fund families, has now expanded its services to support investors in ETFs.
The six different ETF plans offered—for investors at Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab (2),
E*TRADE and TD Ameritrade—employ the identical Adaptive Asset Allocation formula used in
Compass's products for 401(k) participants. Because the Compass model encourages adjustments
to asset allocation every five weeks, trading costs had cut into its performance for those
investors using the product for mutual fund investments outside of 401(k) or single-fund family IRA accounts.
Its new plans, designed specifically around commission-free ETFs now offered at the major brokerages,
offer investors all the advantages of mutual funds without additional fees, minimum purchase restrictions
or the withdrawal limitations imposed on 401(k) or IRA accounts.
Click to see the complete article. FEBRUARY 13, 2013,
Kenilworth, IL
– A recent article published in the Plan Sponsor Council of
America's (PSCA) national publication, Defined Contribution
Insights, outlines a proactive, market-driven approach to
401K/IRA/mutual fund portfolio management. Compass Investors "raises the bar" for retirement income
replacement from the traditional 40-60% to a more realistic
100%. In doing so, they highlight that today's popular asset
allocation strategies (Lifecycle,
Target Date, Managed Accounts)
will never generate the returns necessary to create this
kind of nest egg. The Compass Institute challenges plan sponsors
and plan participants to consider four simple recommendations
that have been shown to mitigate the Retirement Income Security
risk. Performance of Compass Investors' products has been
demonstrated through independently audited back-testing against
actual market results, not projections.
Click to see the complete article. OCTOBER 3, 2007, Chicago, IL
– U.S. workers will have legal recourse against plan sponsors
when, at retirement, they are left with insufficient balances in
their 401(k)s because their Plans were defaulted into Formulaic
Asset Allocation (FAA) funds, (Lifecycle, Target Date, Managed Accounts). As a result of the rule change last year, plan sponsors are now
at risk for litigation if retirees ask why their 401(k) funds were
defaulted, guided or had advice made available that was doomed to
fail them based on publicly available research. Participants will
also want to know why plan sponsors did not guide them to successful
alternatives that were known to be available. In the past, these
kinds of disagreements would not have been played out in a court
of law.
Click to see the complete article. SEPTEMBER 1, 2007, Chicago,
IL – Does the fact that all Formulaic Asset Allocation (FAA)
approaches, e.g., Lifecycle, Target Date and etc., lead typical
Plan Participants to an impoverished retirement expose Plan Fiduciaries
to non-defensible liability? As it is now a matter of public record
that FAA is a failed approach that does not prudently serve the
Plan Participant's best interest, Plan fiduciaries will not be able
to claim they "did not know." This reality, when combined with the
provisions of the Pension Protection Act of 2006—which provide that
a "complaining participant" can challenge in a court of law the
quality of advice the Plan Sponsor made available to the Plan—creates
a ticking fiduciary liability "time bomb."
Click to see the complete article. Free copies of this 42-page Report, 37-page Appendix and/or a
15-page Abstract and Report Overview are available upon request
by sending an email to
[email protected]. AUGUST 1, 2007, Chicago, IL – The
Compass Institute report—The Paradox of Asset Allocation for
Retirement Plan Participants: a Blessing or a Curse™—proves
that unless an Adaptive Asset Allocation™ (AAA) Approach is used,
Plan Participants can never achieve anywhere near the returns needed
over Market Cycles to provide them with
Retirement Income Security. That despite the promises of safe
harbor and 403 (c) protections, plan sponsors will have a nearly
impossible task defending in a court room having directed complaining
Participants to any FAA approach.
Click to see the complete Press Release. Free copies of this 42-page Report, 37-page Appendix and/or a
15-page Abstract and Report Overview are available upon request
by sending an email to
[email protected]. SEPTEMBER 17, 2004, Chicago, IL
– The Compass Institute study—The Fiduciary Trap™ – Plan Participants
and The 4th Metric™—reveals that expected returns from Managed
and/or Life Cycle/Life Style/Target Date Retirement fund investment
approaches will not allow most Plan Participants to reach needed
Retirement Plan value goals. Even if a Plan is 404(c) compliant,
Fiduciaries must consider serious new questions given the ERISA
standard that plan sponsors provide investment assistance appropriate
to Participants' needs.
Click to see the complete Press Release. For a free copies of this 50-page report and/or a one-page abstract,
send an email to:Is Your Target-Date Fund Missing the Target?
Helping to Cure Analysis Paralysis
Trading Your 401(k) Account:
How Bright Can It Be?
Not Your Dad's Retirement Plan—
Or at least it better not be
NOTE: Click
the publication's icon to access the article.
Press Releases
Kenilworth Research Group Offers YOUR COMPASS—New Comprehensive Retirement Outlook Calculator
Chicagoland Firm Compass Investors Expands Services to Include Commission-Free Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)
Adaptive Asset Allocation™ Offers Forward-Thinking,
Alternative Strategy for Retirement Plan Sponsors
Qualified Default Investment Rules May Spark Legal Action
Ticking Fiduciary Time Bombs
Retirement Plan Participants Using Any Formulaic Asset Allocation
(FAA) Approach—Lifecycle, Target Date, Balanced Funds, Managed Accounts
and Monte Carlo Simulation—Are Exposed to the Largest Risks and
Assured of Not Having Nearly Enough Money to Retire
The Fiduciary Trap™ – Plan Participants and The 4th Metric
[email protected].