Target date funds have become the predominant QDIA and thereby one of the most popular investment options. They offer a single, prepackaged vehicle to provide both stock and bond investments that change over time. While they have many benefits, they do have some shortcomings, including the inability to offer guaranteed lifetime income.
Traditional target date funds may offer the following benefits:
- Ease of use
- Turnkey: Glidepath and allocations determined by fund manager
- Become more conservative over time
- Auto rebalancing of portfolio
- Single Net Asset Value to monitor performance
- QDIA eligible
However, they may fall short in a number of ways:
- No control over underlying options
- No control over glidepath
- Large bond exposure at target date may expose participants to interest rate risk
- No lifetime income component
- One size fits all — regardless of risk tolerance or wealth accumulated