Delivering a High-Quality* Investment Roster to Help You Save
We’re here to help business owners and their employees save more for retirement. Every ShareBuilder 401k plan provides a high-quality, low-cost investment lineup designed for long-term investing and sound diversification.
A Sound, Unbiased Approach to Investing Can Make a Big Difference
We believe that a good 401(k) plan focuses on the things an employee can control: costs, diversification and the person’s expected time horizon to retirement. ShareBuilder 401k is not a fund provider, so we take an unbiased approach in evaluating the investment marketplace, and determining the right asset classes and funds for retirement investing.
Our index fund-based (ETF) investment lineup, consisting of Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) carefully selected and managed by our Investment Committee, supports saving by empowering plan participants with retirement appropriate, diverse fund options with low expenses. For employees, investment costs are well under 1%, which means more of their money can be invested toward their financial futures.
Perhaps more importantly, we take on the investment roster review monitoring work to save our clients time and energy, and provide them fiduciary protections for their plan (we serve as the ERISA 3(38) advisor). All this work and added protection are included with your plan and is part of your ShareBuilder 401k pricing.
We apply a philosophy of core fundamentals in determining the investments offered in every ShareBuilder 401k plan:
Investing is a long-term proposition
Following short-term trends and trying to time the market are guesses at best and not suitable for retirement investing.
Diversification is a must
Investing for retirement in one asset class can leave you vulnerable. The most important investment decision is your asset allocation—your mix of stocks, bonds and cash. Being broadly diversified with exposure to all parts of the stock and bond markets reduces the amount of risk to your portfolio and can help keep you on track for retirement.
Costs matter
Every dollar paid in expenses is one less dollar invested in the market. All else being equal, investments with consistently low management fees and transaction costs can give employees a head start in achieving better returns.
The ShareBuilder Advisors Investment Committee continually monitors and evaluates your investment roster and model portfolios with the goal of delivering these benefits for you and your employees.
Indexing Advantage: Low-Expense and Strong Historic Performance
Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) are a type of index fund that offers access to a broad array of asset classes. Index funds typically offer cost advantages over actively managed funds and insurance products found in many 401(k) plans today. Further, historically, most actively managed funds have underperformed their index benchmark.
Our Investment Offerings Are Built to Help Employees Save Smart
Every ShareBuilder 401k offers 22 ETFs across asset classes and one money market. In addition, we provide six model portfolios, from stable to aggressive, to help employees get started since some aren’t familiar with investing or prefer professionals to manage their portfolio allocations. Our Investment Committee reviews model portfolio composition each quarter and automatically adjusts as needed for those that select these investments.
We have a dedicated team of experienced customer success managers, advisors, and investment managers. This team supports employee education initiatives to increase financial literacy through informational videos, guides, clear communications, and both phone and in-person opportunities to ask questions. These initiatives provide knowledge for those seeking more info about the investments in their plan.
When you put all of this together–cost, asset allocation, and our Investment Committee oversight–we believe we’ve designed the best 401(k) offering in the business.
- Unbiased, sound investments
- Asset categories to manage risks and most economic climates
- Low-expense funds (the index advantage)
- Investment Committee protections and oversight
- Model portfolios for straightforward, smart investing
- Investment guidance for education and support
We Can Help You Compare Plans
If you want some guidance in determining whether your plan makes the most financial sense for you and your employees, we can help by reviewing your costs and even forecasting the impact.
* High-quality funds: The ShareBuilder Advisors Investment Committee conducts an annual review of the Exchange-Traded Funds offered as ShareBuilder 401k fund options. This review includes multiple variables including length of time since inception, asset level, historic performance over one to ten years, expense ratio, and how the funds compare to their respective benchmark index. Each fund is monitored and changes are made to the fund lineup as needed to align the investment options to the Investment Committee’s investment policy.