TDSP 401(k)'s award-winning design delivers bold, even occasionally "heretical" editorial fare. (Newsletter Profile).

TDSP 401(k) is taglined "A Review of Investing for Your Financial Future Prepared by The Vanguard Group for IBM." It won The Newsletter on Newsletters 2001 Gold Award in the investment newsletter category, but it began making waves long before that. Vanguard's editor, Gregory Spears, explained:

"IBM wants sophisticated, indepth stories. The interview with Nobel laureate William E Sharpe (1990 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and chairman of Financial Engines, an ingenious financial planning web site) is emblematic of the high bar set for our interviews.

"We've also published interviews with John Bogle (Vanguard's founder), Princeton econ Professor Burton Malkiel (who wrote Random Walk Down Wall Street, a fundamental treatise on investing now in its 7th edition), and Wharton's Jeremy J. Siegel (author of another classic, Stocks for the Long Run). These may not be familiar names to you, but to investment junkies these guys are gods," Spears said.

"The most noticed story in the winning issue, however, was not the Sharpe interview, but the article on page 2 which suggested that plan participants examine whether they were over-committed to IBM stock. This story, published before the Enron debacle, was heretical. Imagine one of the nation's largest and most successful companies suggesting that you might want to limit your IBM stock investments to no more than 10 percent of your overall stock investments. This was a courageous and gutsy story to commission and to run."

The very readable newsletter is laid out in a three-column grid, with serif typefaces used in both headlines and body text (except for an occasional sans serif caption and sidebar, as well as the questions in the page 1 interview). Most body text is in black, complemented by three colors for the headlines, sidebars and charts--green, red, and brown, usually screened to graphically pleasing hues.

Regarding the charts, Spears observed, "The newsletter uses quantitative illustrations, which lends credibility and authority to stories like the one on page 3 [above] that asserts that Index funds outperform over the long run. This is well-known by investment professionals; however, the average Joe lives in hopes of picking the one stellar fund that shoots the lights out.

Good luck. It's the kind of thinking that gets you into tech stocks right before the NASDAQ slides 70 percent. As Dr. Johnson said of marrying a second time, 'It's the triumph of hope over experience,'" Spears said.

Spears said TDSP 401(k) is written for IBM only, "and goes to around 250,000 active IBMers and retirees or others who have 'separated from service' who have tax deferred saving plans."

The Vanguard Group writes the copy to IBM's approval. Spears said, "Vanguardians Charles Neely and Mike Herman plus freelancer Lynn Travers Pritchard wrote this issue. I edited it and conducted the Sharpe interview. Design is by the outside design firm The Davis Group of Portland, Ore.

The quarterly TDSP 401(k) is mailed in the same envelope as the recipients' account statement and is also posted online.