Author Archives: jwatkins

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About jwatkins

I am a securities and ERISA attorney. I hold CFP Board Emeritus™ status and I am an Accredited Wealth Management Advisor™. I provide fiduciary risk management consulting to 401k/430b plans, trustees, RIAs and other investment fiduciaries. I am a 1977 graduate of Georgia State University and a 1981 graduate of the University of Notre Dame Law School. I am the author of "CommonSense InvestSense: The Power of the Informed Investor" and "The 401(k)/403(b) Investment Manual: What Plan Sponsors and Plan Participants REALLY Need To Know" I write two blogs, "CommonSense InvestSense, investsense.com, and "The Prudent Investment Fiduciary Rules, fiduciaryinvestsense.com. As a former compliance director, I have extensive experience in evaluating the legal prudence of various types of investments, including mutual funds and annuities. My goal is to combine my legal and compliance experience in order to help educate investors and investment fiduciaries on sound, proven investment strategies that will help them protect their financial security and/or avoid unnecessary fiduciary liability exposure.

New Charley Ellis interview

Posted on July 23, 2021 by jwatkins

People that know me know how much I respect Charley Ellis. His classic, “Winning the Loser’s Game, ” changed my whole perspective on investing. My popular metric, the Active Management Value Ratio, is based primarily on WLG. Robin Powell has … Continue reading →

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“The Active Management Value Ratio 4.0: What Investors and Investment Fiduciaries REALLY Need to Know About Wealth Accumulation and Preservation”

Posted on July 21, 2021 by jwatkins

The new video is available on the InvestSense YouTube channel.

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2Q 2021 Active Management Value Ratio “Cheat Sheet:” Every Picture Tells A Story

Posted on July 7, 2021 by jwatkins

What was the fund’s stated return? At that point, many people, both investment professionals and ordinary investors, stop their AMVR analysis of the actively managed fund in question, unnecessarily exposing themselves to potential financial losses and/or legal liability. When InvestSense … Continue reading →

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CommonSense InvestSense ERISA 401(k)/403(b) Litigation

Posted on June 25, 2021 by jwatkins

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. – Father Theodore Hesburgh, University of Notre Dame Over twenty years ago, I registered the domain name “investsense.com.” Since then, I … Continue reading →

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Cost-Efficiency and Correlation of Returns: The Often Overlooked Factors in Fiduciary Investing

Posted on June 13, 2021 by jwatkins

“Properly measured, the average actively managed dollar must underperform the average passively managed dollar, net of costs….The best way to measure a manager’s performance is to compare his or her return with that of a comparable passive alternative.”1 Ask a … Continue reading →

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The SCOTUS Decision on Hughes v. Northwestern University: A Pivotal Point for Plan Sponsors and Plan Advisers?

Posted on June 10, 2021 by jwatkins

The Solicitor General of the United States recently filed an amicus brief with SCOTUS asking the Court to hear the case of Hughes v. Northwestern University (Northwestern). The case involves questions regarding the management of University’s 403(b) plan, specifically potential … Continue reading →

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1Q 2021 AMVR Cost-Efficiency “Cheat Sheet”

Posted on April 5, 2021 by jwatkins

We provide two sets of data so that users can choose which data to use. The nominal data is based on the publicly disclosed data. The second set of data is the nominal data adjusted for risk and the funds’ … Continue reading →

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“The Relentless Rules of Humble Arithmetic: 401(k) Fiduciary Litigation at the Crossroads”

Posted on March 31, 2021 by jwatkins

If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.”Justice D. Brandeis Brandeis SCOTUS is currently deciding whether to hear the Hughes v. Northwestern University1 403(b) case. The key issue in the case is an allegation … Continue reading →

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A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words: Cost-Efficiency and the Future of 401(k) and Fiduciary Litigation

Posted on February 21, 2021 by jwatkins

I have written posts regarding the trends in 401(k) and 403(b) fiduciary breach litigation, including Common Sense and Cost-Efficiency: Making ERISA Meaningful Again | The Prudent Investment Fiduciary Rules (wordpress.com) and The Active Management Value Ratio™3.0: Cost-Efficiency and Compliance With … Continue reading →

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Common Sense and Cost-Efficiency: Making ERISA Meaningful Again

Posted on February 8, 2021 by jwatkins

After reading the court’s opinion dismissing the Intel 401(k) action, two things immediately came to mind: (1) the brilliance of the First Circuit’s Brotherston decision, and (2) how increasingly some of the dismissals of 401(k) actions seem to be more … Continue reading →

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