I’m not a big fan of target-date funds and that bias goes back to the implosion of the stock market in 2008-2010, where I thought older workers didn’t realize that their target-date funds had so much equity exposure. I also question the funds’ glide path, as well as no consistency between funds with the same target year across all the fund families.

A recent study stated that retirement plan participants who invest in target-date funds contribute less to their plans than participants who don’t use them. Quite honestly, the results are skewed when many automatic enrollment options use target-date funds as the qualified default investment alternative (QDIA). So many people that use target-date funds, only use it because they are automatically enrolled.