You should also closely examine each of the funds within the target-date fund and understand their investment strategies.

Income funds are often used as the endpoint for target-date funds.

That means a worker who wanted to check on his target-date fund may have some difficulty assessing it.

Actually, many of the target-date funds hold substantial amounts of stock, even on the date when a shareholder is to turn 65.

The study analyzed all 38 of the target-date funds on the market at the end of 2007.

About $182 billion has been poured into target-date funds, and fund companies have set up scores of them.

"Many people in target-date funds got run over by a truck and didn't know why."

Critics of target-date funds maintain that these investments are often opaque and difficult to understand.

Charles Schwab, by contrast, has recently reduced the risk for its target-date funds.

Even though federal officials put a stamp of approval on target-date funds, there are no clear standards about how they should work.