Defined terms for the annuity market and lifetime income landscape.
The Investment Advisers Act of 1940 is the federal statute that governs the registration, conduct, and disclosure obligations of persons who provide securities advice for compensation, administered by the SEC federally and by state regulators for smaller advisers.
An investment committee is the governance body, typically a subset of or parallel to the plan committee, that exercises fiduciary responsibility over investment menu selection, monitoring, and de-selection for an ERISA-covered retirement plan, operating under the investment policy statement.
Investment grade versus high yield is the standard credit-quality classification for corporate bonds, dividing them into investment-grade bonds — rated at or above the BBB minus / Baa3 threshold by the major rating agencies — and high-yield bonds rated below that threshold.
