From A fund limits its growth by Kathleen Pender, San Francisco Chronicle, Tuesday, July 20, 2004:

Fidelity Low-Priced Stock is the 10th most-popular fund in 401(k) plans. But if you don’t own it in your retirement plan by July 30, you won’t be able to buy it through your plan for the foreseeable future.

..The [Oregon state employees] plan decided to replace [Low-Priced Stock] with the American AAdvantage Small Cap Value fund. Pension fund consultant Jon Chambers is recommending the same fund to his clients as a replacement for Low-Priced Stock.

‘F’ stocks rise to top of class by Kathleen Pender. San Francisco Chronicle, Thursday, November 13, 2003.

So what’s out of whack: the model or the market?

Jon Chambers, a principal with Schultz Collins Lawson Chambers in San Francisco, says the results suggest that Schwab’s approach “doesn’t really work. It shows you how hard it is to come up with a system for beating the market.”

From Selecting a 401(k) plan provider: Navigating the maze
Global Finance, Sep 2003 by Gordon Platt:

Jon C. Chambers, principal at San Francisco-based Schultz Collins Lawson Chambers, an independent investment advisory firm that offers a provider-evaluation service, says many plan sponsors make frequent changes to their service vendors.

In setting up a selection committee to evaluate plan providers, Chambers says, a company needs to include participants from a range of disciplines. The plan sponsor needs to consider which investment and service configurations best suit its needs, he says.

From Balancing Act, by Donald Jay Korn, September 2003 Financial Planning magazine.

“A total return trust operates without the safety net of enforced conservatism,” notes Patrick Collins, a financial analyst in San Francisco who has written extensively about such trusts. “Therefore, it is vital to shape carefully the language of distribution provisions, lest the corpus run out of money prior to the end of the planning horizon. Distribution provisions both reflect and govern reasonable spending expectations, which in turn provide the targeted return for asset allocation and asset management decisions. Grantors and beneficiaries must determine a suitable balance between growth expectations [reward], failure rates [distributions below an acceptable dollar amount], and bankruptcy risk [portfolio value approaching zero].”

From The take on tainted funds by Kathleen Pender, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, September 21, 2003:

Morningstar has advised investors to avoid funds run by Nations, Janus, Strong and Bank One—the four groups named in a complaint filed by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Jon Chambers, a principal with Schultz Collins Lawson Chambers in San Francisco, says none of his clients use Nations funds. “If they did, I think we’d tell them that fund company is really in trouble.

From Bush tax plan a boon to savers, Treasury could see quick windfall, long-term drought by Kathleen Pender, San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday, February 1, 2003:

These plans would follow existing rules for 401(k) plans, but the rules would be simplified. One rule change would let higher-paid employees contribute more to such plans, said Jon Chambers, a retirement-plan consultant with Schultz Collins Lawson Chambers.

“This plan is definitely way out there,” Chambers said. “It would basically overturn everything.”

From Older Investors Miss the Chance To Catch Up in Retirement Plans (subscription required) by Bridget O’Brian on September 13, 2002:

Catching up hasn’t caught on yet. Since Congress last year invited investors age 50 and older to make extra contributions to their mutual funds and other investments in tax-advantaged retirement plans, only a fraction of those who can use these “catch up” provisions have done so.

…And in any case, many eligible investors probably aren’t even aware of the catch up provisions. “Anytime there’s a tax law change, it takes a long time for the information to be disseminated” to investors says Jon Chambers, a vice president with Schultz Collins Lawson Chambers, Inc., a 401(k) consulting firm in San Francisco.

From Self-Directed Accounts: 401(k)s with a View by Ellen Hoffman, March, 2000

Assuming you already have a 401(k), what are the administrative and operational implications of adding an SDA option?

First, make sure that an SDA would be consistent with your plan’s investment policy, suggests Jon C. Chambers, vice president of Schultz Collins Lawson Chambers, Inc., investment consultants in San Francisco. If you adopt such a plan, you may have to amend the policy. (See “401(k)s Need Investment Policies, Too,” October 1999 HR Magazine, p. 100.)