401(k) Fair Disclosure for Retirement Security Act Passes US House Labor Committee

We are pleased to see that H.R. 3185, the 401(k) Fair Disclosure for Retirement Security Act, was recently passed by the House Education and Labor Committee. We think that plan participants have a right to know exactly how much they are paying in fees to the financial services companies that manage and administer their 401(k) plans.

Says Rep. George Miller, chairman of the Committee, "For too long, companies in the financial services industry have maintained a stranglehold on retirement savings that they didn't earn and that don't belong to them. The purpose of this legislation is to take these hard-earned savings away from the special interests and return them to their rightful place – the retirement accounts of American workers. Workers are entitled to clear and complete information about their own savings."

We couldn't agree more.

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Are You Building Your Own Nest Egg?

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Blue Ocean 401(k) Receives Unsolicited Endorsement from Independent Pension Fiduciary

St. Louis, MO April 16, 2008 --Independent Pension Fiduciary, Matthew D. Hutcheson, officially endorsed the retirement plan services offered by St. Louis-based Blue Ocean 401(k). Blue Ocean is the only firm in Missouri, and one of eight firms nationwide, to receive such an endorsement.

Says Hutcheson, “Over the past few years, a few very special firms have embraced a ‘participant first’ approach to delivering retirement plan services. Such firms are managed by responsible parties, who gladly accept fiduciary responsibility, with the goal of serving the best interests of nearly fifty million individual plan participants.”

“Blue Ocean 401(k) is one of those firms,” adds Hutcheson.

Matthew Hutcheson is recognized as one of the leading advocates of investor and retirement plan participant rights. He has worked with hundreds of plan fiduciaries and conducted many fiduciary and economic plan audits and reviews. He is also a Congressional Expert who has testified before Congress and worked with other regulatory bodies to protect the retirement income security of American workers.

Blue Ocean 401(k) provides full service 401(k) plans that use low cost index mutual funds to develop diversified portfolios for plan participants. The average total participant cost is well under 1.00% annually, including the expense ratios of the underlying index funds, making it one of the lower cost 401(k) platforms available.

“Mr. Hutcheson’s endorsement independently confirms that our innovative 401(k) service is consistent with public policy and Department of Labor initiatives. The American worker deserves a more efficient savings vehicle” says Blue Ocean principal Jim Winkelmann. “It is a wonderful validation of the principles that we practice and so deeply believe in.”


More information about Blue Ocean 401(k) is available at www.BlueOcean401k.com.

About Blue Ocean Portfolios

Blue Ocean Portfolios is an Innovation of Huntleigh Capital Management, Inc., an SEC registered Investment Advisor managing both institutional and individual assets. Blue Ocean Portfolios was developed as a means to share an accumulated wealth of knowledge with clients all over the world and provide these investors with the optimal risk adjusted portfolios, utilizing index funds, Exchange Traded Funds and US Government Bonds.

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The Recent DOL Ruling That 401(k) Sponsors Need to Know About

The DOL took a relatively unnoticed, but highly significant step last month that could influence the increasing number of 401(k) lawsuits.

The action involves a lawsuit filed by employees at Deere & Co. against both the company and their 401(k) provider, Fidelity Investments. The suit, like others being filed by employees at other companies, alleged that both Deere and Fidelity were in breach of their fiduciary responsibilities due to the plan’s unreasonable and excessive fees and expenses. The suit was dismissed last year by a federal judge.

Last month, however, the DOL stepped into the appeals process by filing a brief requesting that the judge’s ruling be reversed by the appeals court.

This is an interesting action the DOL did not have to take. Regardless of how this turns out, it’s clear that people in influential places are paying close attention to the fees being paid by 401(k) plan participants. And it’s also clear many don’t like what they’re seeing.

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Avoid This $100 Billion Scam

$100 billion dollars.

That’s what investors are collectively paying Wall Street every year in an attempt to beat the stock market. This according to the results of a new study, “The Cost of Active Investing,” by Dartmouth Professor Kenneth R. French.

So what do investors get in return? According to Professor French’s research, worse than nothing. In fact, the study finds that if investors had simply invested in a passive market portfolio (ie. index funds) between 1980 and 2006, they would have boosted their average annual return by 67 basis points.

And as we've written about before, Small Percentages Add Up To Big Money.

There’s an excellent article in the New York Times that examines this study in more detail. The bottom line?

“The best course for the average investor is to buy and hold an index fund for the long term. Even if you think you have compelling reasons to believe a particular trade could beat the market, the odds are still probably against you. “

You can read the New York Times article here.

You can download Professor French's study here.

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