Target date funds

A growing popular option for retirement plan investors is to use a target date fund as the investment medium. These funds are now being offered in corporate retirement plans and are offered by a growing number of mutual fund firms. For more information on retirement plans and tax deferred investing please refer to Retirement and tax deferred investing.

Target Retirement Indexes

 * Dow Jones Target Date Indexes
 * Dow Jones Real Return Target Date Indexes
 * S&P Target Date Index Series

Papers

 * Lifetime Asset Allocations:Methodologies for Target Maturity Funds Ibbotson Associates Research Report {February 11, 2008}
 * Life Cycle Funds by Viceira, Luis M., (May 2007)
 * Making Investment Choices as Simple as Possible: An Analysis of Target Date Retirement Funds by Bodie, Zvi and Treussard, Jonathan (January 2007)
 * Popping The Hood: An Analysis of Major Target Fund Families by Joseph C. Nagensatt, John Bucci, William S.Coakley, II (2006)
 * Funds For Retirement: The "Life Cycle" Approach by Vanguard Investment Counseling & Research
 * Target date funds and goal-based benchmarks by Vanguard Investment Counseling & Research, 08/23/2007
 * Evaluating and implementing target date portfolios: Four key considerations by Michael Hess, John Ameriks, Ph.D., Scott J. Donaldson, CFA, CFP Vanguard Investment Counseling & Research, 03/04/2008
 * Target-date funds: Plan and participant adoption in 2007 by William E. Nessmith and Stephen P. Utkus, Vanguard Center for Retirement Research, November 2008.
 * Missing the Target by Craig L. Israelsen and Joseph C. Nagengast, published in Financial Planning Magazine, September 2007.
 * The Dynamics of Lifecycle Investing in 401(k) Plans by Mitchell, Olivia S., Mottola, Gary R., Utkus, Stephen P. and Yamaguchi, Takeshi, (October 2007)
 * Why the Target Funds are Good Marketing but Lousy Investing by Scott Burns.
 * William Bernstein on Vanguard's Target Retirement funds: The One-Fund Holy Grail