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A Fiduciary Blueprint: The Restatement of Trusts, the Prudent Investor Rule, and the DOL's New Fiduciary Rule

"In adapting their practices to the DOL's new fiduciary rule, financial advisers need to focus on the fact that fiduciary liability is generally based on a fiduciary's imprudent conduct in developing their investment recommendations, not the actual performance of the actual investments and strategies. It is reasonable to assume that the courts will continue to rely on the Restatement of Trusts and the Prudent Investor Rule in interpreting imprudent conduct under the DOL's new fiduciary rule."

Modern Portfolio Theory, the Prudent Investor Rule and Fiduciary Investing

"While most financial advisers are aware of the 'total portfolio' approach of MPT and the Rule, they are often unfamiliar with other key tenets of MPT and the Rule. Consequently, many financial advisers are unaware that their practices may be totally inconsistent with MPT and the Rule, leaving them exposed to liability for financial losses sustained by their clients."

Costs, Correlations and Prudent Fiduciary Investing

"Financial advisers and actively managed mutual funds do not like to talk about the costs associates with their funds. Research has consistently shown that the overwhelming majority of actively managed are not cost efficient.... Financial advisers and actively managed funds also do not like to discuss the relationship between a fund's implicit expense ratio and its correlation of returns with comparable index funds."

Investment Analysis and Risk Management for Investment Fiduciaries

"One of the key inconsistencies between the court[s] is whether index mutual funds can be used in determining whether plan participants can use index mutual funds to determine whether a plan sponsor breached their fiduciary duties in selecting investment options for a plan, as well as in calculating the damages resulting from a breach.... SCOTUS needs to decide these issues as soon possible in order to ensure uniformity by the federal courts in interpreting and applying ERISA and to minimize the damages caused by these inconsistencies."

Fiduciary Financial Advice to Retirement Savers: Don't Overlook the Prudent Investor Rule

"This essay calls attention to the regulatory imposition of the prudent investor rule on financial advisers to retirement savers. The essay also canvasses the basic tenets of the prudent investor rule, highlighting its nature as principles-based rather than prescriptive, and the customary role of an investment policy statement in compliance by professional fiduciaries."

What Prudent Plan Sponsors Must Understand About the Executive Order and Fiduciary Risk Management

"Prudent plan sponsors would be best served by totally ignoring the President's executive order ... Since neither ERISA not any any laws/regulations require a plan to offer such potentially liability ridden investments, the obvious question from a fiduciary risk management standpoint -- 'Why go there? ... [F]ew plan sponsors have the experience or skill to properly investigate and/or evaluate alternative investments."

Nevada Rains on Anti-Fiduciary Rule Parade

"The bullying efforts of the DOL and investment industry have now been countered by the state of Nevada's announcement that the intend to exercise their 10th Amendment police powers to protect their citizens by holding all stockbrokers and financial adviser in their state to a fiduciary standard. Pandora's box is officially open and the investment industry has clearly indicated its concern, and rightfully so."

What Mr. Schlichter Understands ... and Plan Sponsors and Investment Fiduciaries Need to Understand as Well

"[T]he prudent fiduciary will normally choose a period of five or more years so that at least one down period is included to get a better idea of how the fund performed in both up and down markets.... [T]oo many investment fiduciaries look at a fund's nominal returns and the fund's standard deviation and believe that they have met their fiduciary duties.... What too many fiduciaries fail to consider is that a fund's nominal return may not reflect the fact that a fund achieved a respectable return while assuming far less risk than a fund with slightly higher nominal returns."

Whoomp, There It Is! The New Prudent Fee Fiduciary Standard

"[The] United States District Court for Southern District of New York provided the long-anticipated introduction, or more specifically the judicial verification, of Vanguard's funds' fees as a comparative basis for assessing excessive of fund fees was established. While the case is not binding on other courts, the rationale used by the court is persuasive and will undoubtedly be referenced by plaintiffs' attorneys in both 401(k) and other cases where breach of fiduciary issues involving fee issues are involved.... More importantly, the court's decision provides further support for the relevance of intrinsic costs and returns in analyzing both investment recommendations made by financial advisors and investment options offered by 401(k) plans and other retirement plans." [Leber v. The Citigroup 401(k) Plan Investment Committee, No. 07-CV-9329 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2014)]

Quantifying the Impartial Conduct Standards Under the DOL Fiduciary Rule

"While the 'misleading statements' standard is self-explanatory, it has been suggested that it will be left to the courts and attorneys to define the meaning of 'best interest' and 'reasonable compensation.' ... [J]ust as the courts look to the Restatement (Third) of Trusts to interpret fiduciary law, advisers and other investment fiduciaries can, and should, look to the Restatement for guidance as the interpretation of both terms."