People want it easy. The trouble is, life is hard. Savingfor your retirement is the same way. It's harder when you considereverything you don't know. This is the dilemma facing allretirement savers. But it's a challenge rife with opportunity forprofessionals providing advice to that market. Here's how.

Qualified default investment alternatives include both targetdate funds and target risk (aka “lifestyle”) funds. While theformer has the track record, the latter has something better—theallure of ease.

Target risk funds are defined by their familiar “aggressive,”“moderate,” and “conservative” descriptions. Target date funds aredefined by their singular characteristic—their date. This traitplays to the typical retirement saver's need for ease. It's assimple as answering the question “What year will I retire?” andplugging everything into the target date fund with a date closestto that year.

Ah, if only reality were this easy. We all know it's moreimportant to focus on maximizing savings rather than concentratingon finding the “perfect” investment. Beyond that, many financialprofessionals agree the retirement saver's “goal-oriented target”(“GOT”) is far more revealing than one's year of retirement. A GOTis similar to a personal required rate of return given a retirementsaver's current retirement assets, annual contributions, and numberof years left until retirement. Since all three of these factorscan be adjusted by the individual retirement saver, that saver hasthe ability to fine-tune their GOT to an acceptable level.

What's an acceptable level? That's where the investment advisorcomes into play. Once the GOT is determined, then it's a matter offinding the correct balanced fund to invest in. In almost allcases, the retirement saver might be better served with a targetrisk fund rather than a fund that's based on the date of theirretirement.

Take two individuals, both the same age and both retiring thesame year. Under the target date regime, they would both invest inthe same target date fund. But what if one is already independentlywealthy and seeking to preserve assets (i.e., meeting or exceedingthe inflation rate of, say, 2 percent) while the other must growtheir assets at 8 percent a year? The first person has a GOT of 2percent, while the second has a GOT of 8 percent. Would aknowledgeable professional place them in the same exact fund? No.Chances are, the 2 percent GOT retirement saver would go into a“conservative” balanced fund and the 8 percent GOT retirement saverwould go into an “aggressive” balanced fund.

The retirement saver might not know this, but the financialprofessional will.