Texas Instruments 401k (SP) Plan PSDS Scan 12-31-2010

I have little new information since the last scan for the Texas Instruments 401k in August 2010. After looking at a few court documents I decided to replace STIF with NOFIX the Northern Trust fixed income fund. The Balanced portfolio is still a lifeboat portfolio with over 90% of the Plan in just two funds NOFIX and BBPAX both income funds. I ran scans with and without Target Date Funds and they made almost no difference in the Balanced portfolio 5yr APR of 5.31%. Company stock TXN has a negative 5yr Sharpe ratio and by rule is not in the portfolio because of the stock's high volatility. This is a good company but the 401k Plan needs work. The retirement committee may want to check out Intel's 401k or other Top Ten 401k Plans posted on this site.

Trinity Industries Inc. 401k (PSP) PSDS Scan 12-31-2010

Trinity Industries 401k Plan changed Trustees in 2010 to JP Morgan and almost all of the Fidelity fund options were changed to JP Morgan funds. In the scan Fidelity funds were used for the 2 Target Date Retirement  options instead of JSRAX and JTTIX which do not yet have 5yr market data. The Balanced portfolio was not helped by company stock TRN which has a small negative 5yr APR. The Balanced portfolio 5yr APR of 5.71% is about average for 401k Plans with a 5yr Sharpe ratio of 1.28. All in all a pretty good 401k but the stock has not done well the last five years.

Standard & Poor's 401k (S&PS) Plan PSDS Scan 12-31-2010

Standard & Poor's 401k savings and profit sharing plan for represented employees has McGraw-Hill Companies common stock MHP and 11 other investment options. The Plan trustee is Northern Trust and I used their funds for Plan category investment options as available. The Balanced portfolio is a lifeboat portfolio with over 90% of the Plan in just three options; a stable asset fund SVF.nti in the scan, a GIC and a money market fund VMMXX for NORXX. The employee portfolio asset allocation is my best effort after a reading of the SEC 11-k report and the Form 5500 report. As the charts show the Balanced portfolio 5yr APR is a bit below average and the Sharpe ratio is way above average because the Northern Trust Stable Asset Fund has a very high 5yr Sharpe ratio of 10.3. Interesting.

Eaton Corp. 401k (SP) Plan PSDS Scan 12-31-2010

The Eaton 401k Balanced portfolio made a small improvement over last year but is still below average. This Plan has better income options than equity options. Company stock ETN is the best equity option for the last 5 year period but both the Balanced portfolio and the employee portfolio invested less than 5% of Plan in the stock. That's not good. In my opinion the retirement plan committee needs to consider making a few changes to strengthen the equity options in this 401k Plan.

Cameron International 401k Plan PSDS Scan 12-31-2010

Cameron International acquired NATCO in 2009 and in 2010 changed the Plan trustee to T. Rowe Price. These changes and others complicated the SEC 11-k report and I did not have time to sort them all out. No employee portfolio, only a uniform portfolio is provided here for comparison with the Balanced portfolio. The Balanced portfolio was helped by company stock CAM which is still the largest employee holding I think. The Balanced portfolio has a 5yr APR of 6.53% with a Sharpe ratio of 1.30 both above average. Like many plans there are too many investment options for the average employee to evaluate in my opinion. That can lead to investing by fund name "conservative growth" instead of fund risk adjusted performance.

Airgas Inc. 401k Plan PSDS Scan 12-31-2010

The Airgas 401k Plan has all Vanguard investment options and company stock ARG which is in the Balanced portfolio. Among the Vanguard options are a stable value fund VRST and a money market fund VMMXX which are the two largest holdings of the Balanced portfolio. This is a pretty conservation 401k Plan. My only suggestion would be to consider adding a Vanguard sector fund like VEIEX but the Plan is just fine with the current options for most.

Eastman Chemical 401k (ESOP) Plan PSDS Scan 12-31-2010

The Eastman Chemical 401k continues to be helped by company stock EMN and the Balanced portfolio this year has a 5yr APR of 5.26% with 4.4% of the portfolio invested in company stock. That stock is the largest holding at 12.6% of the employee portfolio. At the category level according to the SEC 11-k report the Plan asset allocation is as shown below and I do not think the Managed Income investment is participant directed.  

Managed Income 41.6% (FMIP)
Mutual Funds 44.7% (Mostly Fidelity Funds)
Company Stock 12.6% (EMN)
Self Directed Accounts 1.1% (PCRAs and cash)

All in all a pretty good 401k Plan with good domestic equity options and the always popular PTTRX bond fund. This scan is still using 12-31-2010 Market data. I should have 12-31-2011 data in a week or two.