By James Comtois, includes “… The plans’ decisions to reduce their assumed rates have been a long time coming, regardless of recent returns buoyed by strong equity market gains, industry experts said. … Steven J. Foresti, chief investment officer at Wilshire Advisors in Santa Monica, Calif., admitted that although ‘it feels a bit odd to say future return expectations are low when we just had this bonanza of returns, (the) outlook going forward is muted.’ ‘One reason why discount rates have been going down has been due to market expectations,’ Mr. Foresti said. ‘You can’t just make these numbers up.’ …”