401(k) Fridays Podcast

A quick word of warning, this episode is not for the faint of heart!  Today we tackle and I think make more familiar the topic of factor investing.  I will be the first one to admit that I am one of those people who is familiar with factor investing but have been confused with the role it can or does plan in workplace retirement plan investment menu design.  So, I was personally excited to have Stacey Tovrov, a Vice President and Investment Strategies within Blackrock’s Defined Contribution business join me on the podcast to break this down.  With many in the investment community anticipating a low  return environment in the future the “buzz” word when I speak with various investment firms has been factor investing and specifically what I learned is a subset of factor investing smart beta.  For example, it seems we hear more that the XYZ strategy uses a factor based approach to accomplish this or that, or our ABC strategy uses an index based smart beta strategy and so on and so forth.  During my conversation