Retirement Plans Compared:
DBA Systems, Inc. vs Titan Corp.

This page was researched and built on my own time.  Neither DBA Systems nor Titan is responsible for the information herein.  To the best of my knowledge and ability it is accurate and available from public sources.  Any mistakes are purely my own, so, beware, I may have been drunk, hallucinatory, hubristic, or lying through my teeth (no, wait, that was last night!).  Opinions are given in a slightly smaller font -- think of them as whispers.

"I ain't a lawyer, I ain't an accountant, and I ain't gonna pretend to be one.  You gets what you pays for."

invisible text -- Rich Franzen    myHome


Plan Comparison

DBA
Titan
  • 15% max employee contrib.  New!
  •  6% max company match
        100% on  1st 2%
         75% on next 4%
         50% on next 2%
  • employee contribution unconstrained
  • employee contrib. is fully vested
  • company match unconstrained
  • 1% investment granularity
  • 5 years to full vesting  New
     (4 years if hired before 1 July 99)
  • borrow up to 50% of vested funds
  • up to 2 loans at a time
  • no Employee Stock Ownership Plan
  • profit sharing plan to 401k funds
  • "individual advice" from Smith Barney
  • 24\7 800-number for account info
  • web access to account  New!
  • separate "record keeper" (Leggette)
  • 15% max employee contribution
  •  5% max company match
        100% on  1st 5%


  • employee contribution unconstrained
  • employee contrib. is fully vested
  • 50% of company match to TTN stock
  • 10% investment granularity
  • 5 years to full vesting

  • borrow up to 50% of vested funds
  • only 1 loan at a time
  • Employee Stock Ownership Plan
  • profit sharing to ESOP only
  • investment education from Vanguard
  • 24\7 800-number for account info
  • web access to account
  • no separate record keeper
  • graph which compares the matching policies
    upcoming changes to DBA's plan


    Fund Comparisons
    The following tables compare performance between the DBA set of funds and the Titan set of funds.  Current information may be obtained by clicking the fund names or charts.  Information in the tables is from the Yahoo Finance site.  I was planning on also linking to the "official" sites for each fund, but Smith Barney does not seem to want to be associated with its own TRAK (aka Consulting Group Capital Markets) funds.  Vanguard has no such hesitation, however, and (except for the "Vanguard Retirement Savings Trust") official information on its funds is easy to find.

    In each table, the DBA (Smith Barney TRAK) funds are on the left, and the equivalent Titan (Vanguard) funds are on the right.  The expense ratio's for the DBA column are somewhat complex.  TRAK has a quoted expense for each fund, but what they don't quote is their 1.5% annual "advisement fee", which they claim is external to the fund, and need not be included in their fee statement.  So an individual investor would earn 1.5% less than the stated "total return".  DBA's contract with Smith Barney negotiates a special, across the board total fee of 1.76% on all funds, so I also list this as well as the true actual return received by DBA employees.  DBA investors in the Government Money fund are probably paying one of the highest fees on any money fund in the country (1.76% is way out of bounds for a reasonable fee on a money fund).

    Two Vanguard funds have an additional $10.00 annual fee, so if you have exactly $666.67 invested in one of these, it is equivalent to the 1.5% TRAK fee.  But if you have $10,000 invested, it would only be a 0.1% fee (which at that point they wave anyway).  The Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund (NAESX) has a one-time 0.5% fee paid at purchase.  Since the other fees are all paid annually, I did not include this in its table.

    Money Funds
    TGMX X
    VMMX X   - - - -   Vanguard RST
    $1.00
    $1.00
    info from Jan98 prospectus
  • 1 year ave return:    5.01% (3.85%)
  • 3 year ave return:    4.95% (3.79%)
  • Total expense ratio:  0.60% (1.76%)
  •     VMMXX info from Jun99 Vanguard Yields
  • 1 year ave return:     5.05% -- 6.08%
  • 5 year ave return:     5.34% -- 6.10%
  • Total expense ratio:   0.33% -- 0.30%
  • Ratings

    Two ratings are given for each fund.  The best known rating is probably Morningstar, which rates funds with between one and five stars, five being best.  The other rating is CDA, which rates funds numerically from 1 to 99, with 1 being best.

    Both systems measure composite performance of two elements.  Morningstar uses return and risk, whereas CDA uses return and volatility.  In both cases, return is a measure of how much the fund increased or decreased over a given interval.  This includes not only price change, but also reinvested earnings from dividends and capital gains.

    Risk, as used by Morningstar, is a measure of how the fund performed compared to treasury bonds.  This measure is then compared to other funds in the same category (large growth, domestic bond, etc.), and a relative ranking is assigned.  This ranking is combined with the return ranking, and up to five stars are assigned.

    Volatility, as used by CDA, is a measure of how "jaggy" the price curve looks for the fund.  Lots of ups and downs means high volatility, and a relatively smooth curve means low volatility.  This measure is used to penalize the return ranking, with higher volatility raising the CDA rating.

    Remember that both rating systems are calculated based on past performance.  There is no guarantee that a 5-star fund will still be rated so high two months from now.  Similarly, a fund with a CDA rating of 90 might well improve to 37 next year.
     

    Information below was gathered 9 June 1999.
    Get current fund info by clicking 1st part of fund name.
    Get current Morningstar info by clicking X.
    Get comparitive charts by clicking Funds.
    Chart info is updated daily by Yahoo!.

    Bond Funds
    TIIU X
    VBMF X   - - - -   VWEH X
     
  • 1 year ave return:     3.00% (2.04%)
  • 3 year ave return:     5.92% (4.28%)
  • Total expense ratio:   0.80% (1.76%)
  • CDA Rating:           46
  • Morningstar rating:    ***
  • Last income (23 Jun): $0.037
  • 1 year ave return:     2.46%     --  1.15%
  • 3 year ave return:     6.95%     --  8.77%
  • Total expense ratio:   0.20%+$10 --  0.29%
  • CDA Rating:           40         -- 52
  • Morningstar rating:    ****      --  *****
  • Last income (28 May): $0.051     -- $0.054
  • Growth & Income and Balanced Funds
    TLVU X
    VWNF X   - - - -   VWIN X
     
  • 1 year ave return:    12.07% (11.09%)
  • 3 year ave return:    22.87% (21.89%)
  • Total expense ratio:   0.78% ( 1.76%)
  • CDA Rating:           31
  • Morningstar rating:    ****
  • Last income (8 Dec):  $1.86
  • 1 year ave return:    12.54% --  4.63%
  • 3 year ave return:    24.52% -- 13.72%
  • Total expense ratio:   0.41% --  0.31%
  • CDA Rating:           33     -- 22
  • Morningstar rating:    ****  --  ***
  • Last income: (25 Jun) $0.300 -- $0.280
  • Large Growth Funds
    TLGU X
    VWUS X
  • 1 year ave return:    25.71% (24.68%)
  • 3 year ave return:    28.60% (27.57%)
  • Total expense ratio:   0.73%  (1.76%)
  • CDA Rating:            5
  • Morningstar rating:    *****
  • Last income (8 Dec):  $0.836
  • 1 year ave return:    20.75%
  • 3 year ave return:    27.53%
  • Total expense ratio:   0.41%
  • CDA Rating:           22
  • Morningstar rating:    *****
  • Last income (16 Dec): $2.500
  • Small Capital Growth Funds
    TSGU X
    NAES X
  • 1 year ave return:     6.10% (5.52%)
  • 3 year ave return:     7.51% (6.93%)
  • Total expense ratio:   1.18% (1.76%)
  • CDA Rating:           50
  • Morningstar rating:    **
  • Last income (8 Dec):  $0.515
  • 1 year ave return:     2.81%
  • 3 year ave return:    12.32%
  • Total expense ratio:   0.24%+$10
  • CDA Rating:           65
  • Morningstar rating:    **
  • Last income (26 Mar): $0.170
  • International Stock Funds
    TIEU X
    VWIG X
  • 1 year ave return:     6.96% (6.24%)
  • 3 year ave return:     9.24% (8.52%)
  • Total expense ratio:   1.04% (1.76%)
  • CDA Rating:           58
  • Morningstar rating:    ***
  • Last income (8 Dec):  $0.749
  • 1 year ave return:    6.64%
  • 3 year ave return:    9.81%
  • Total expense ratio:   0.59%
  • CDA Rating:           44
  • Morningstar rating:    ***
  • Last income (18 Dec): $0.380
  • Titan Stock Fund
    n/a
    TTN


    Related Links:

    Mining Co. retirement page

    Yahoo retirement page

    Mozilla retirement page


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    Accesses since 2 March 1999
    Page last updated on 10 July 1999


    Versions:   Jun99   May99   Apr99   Feb99