The DOL’s proposed regulation on selecting investments, including alternative assets, 2026-06178.pdf, identifies six factors that need to be considered in the process of selecting investments for participant-directed plans, such as 401(k) plans and private sector 403(b) plans. The six factors are: Performance, Fees, Liquidity, Valuation, Performance Benchmark, and Complexity.  The

The DOL’s proposed regulation on selecting investments, including alternative assets, 2026-06178.pdf, identifies six factors that need to be considered in the process of selecting any investments for participant-directed plans, such as 401(k) plans and private sector 403(b) plans. The six factors are: Performance, Fees, Liquidity, Valuation, Performance Benchmark, and Complexity.

In my last post in this series– Alternative Assets (5), I discussed the provision in the DOL’s proposed regulation on the Selection of Designated Investment Alternatives for participant-directed plans (2026-06178.pdf) that provides a fiduciary safe harbor for each of the 6 identified factors if fiduciaries “inform” themselves properly. (While labeled

In my last post in this series– Alternative Assets (4), I discussed the provision in the DOL’s proposed regulation on the Selection of Designated Investment Alternatives for participant-directed plans (2026-06178.pdf) that requires that “all relevant factors” be considered in the process of making a prudent investment decision. Later in the

In my three posts in this series–Alternative Assets (1), Alternative Assets (2), and Alternative Assets (3), I discussed some of the “big picture” provisions in the DOL’s proposed regulation on the Selection of Designated Investment Alternatives for participant-directed plans (2026-06178.pdf). With this article, we begin to get into the “weeds”,

In my first post in this series, Alternative Assets (1), I said that a surprise in the DOL’s proposed regulation on selecting investments for participant-directed plans (2026-06178.pdf) was that it went beyond the alternative assets mentioned in last August’s Executive Order and instead applied to all investments in participant-directed plans—both