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Funds suffer £11.1bn in outflows in 2025 despite FTSE 100 surging 21.5 per cent — its biggest gain since 2009
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Disruption. It's coming for the U.S. dollar in the form of digital currency. Last week the Biden administration detailed a broad plan for adopting a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the coming years. The Departments of Energy, Commerce, the Treasury, and other agencies weighed in on how to manage and regulate a CBDC.
The government is reacting in part to the explosive growth of digital currencies. About three out of ten U.S. adults currently invest in some form of cryptocurrency, or "crypto," like Bitcoin or Ethereum. These digital "coins" rely on a decentralized network of computers to verify financial transactions, cutting out third parties like banks or credit cards.
The good, the bad, and the ugly of crypto
Advocates of crypto point to its affordability, efficiency, and its ability to reach consumers with little or no access to traditional banking services. With just a mobile phone or a crypto ATM, consumers can easily send and receive digital currency, even across international borders.
On the other hand, crypto is still largely unregulated and volatile. Investors in Bitcoin, for example, saw returns of over 70% in 2021, but the currency is down almost 60% year to date. And if you send your payment to the wrong account (called a "digital wallet") there may be no way to retrieve it. Crypto has also been used for money laundering, fraud, and to fund terrorism. Several
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I don't ignore my retirement accounts, but I consider myself mostly a set-it-and-forget-it investor. I prefer to pick an investment strategy, arrange automatic contributions and then sit back without tinkering much with my portfolio. For that reason, I used a target-date fund in my 401(k) when I had one (I'm self-employed now). My husband invests in a fund with a 2050 target date through his employer plan.
A target-date fund aims to create an appropriate investment mix for the investor's age and approximate retirement date. A fund designed for someone with many years until retirement includes a high proportion of stocks for growth. Over time, the fund regularly rebalances, allocating a greater percentage of assets to less-risky, income-producing investments, such as bonds, as retirement nears.
We're far from alone in our preference for target-date funds. Among 401(k) participants in their twenties, 54% of their assets were in target-date funds at the end of 2019, and investors in their thirties had 45% of assets in target-date funds, according to a study from the Investment Company Institute and Employee Benefit Research Institute. Many large employer plans automatically enroll employees and use target-date funds as the default investment choice.
SEE MORE PODCAST: The Pros and Cons of Target Date Funds with Tony Drake
Evaluating Your Plan.
Target-date funds are attractive for their simplicity. But if you're dissatisfied with your plan's target-date offerings or have the appetite to construct a customized portfolio, you can typically select among a menu of several other investment options. If you have decades to go until retirement, you may want to dedicate 80% to 90% of your portfolio to stocks. I
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