Public and Private Pension Plans Face Funding Gap
By Randy Myers Each year, researchers at investment consulting firm Wilshire Associates study the health of the nation’s largest public and private pension plans. Lately, their findings have been discouraging. “It’s not great,” Wilshire managing director James Neill told participants at the 2010 SVIA Fall Forum. “At the end of the last decade, things were […]
Hunt Cautions Against Premature Spending Cuts—Or Counting Out President Obama
By Randy Myers Congressional Republicans won big in the recent midterm election, often running on an anti-spending platform. But cutting federal spending too soon could be a mistake, warns Al Hunt, Washington managing editor for Bloomberg News. It also could be a mistake, he says, to assume that the GOP’s big showing in 2010 will […]
The Labor-Treasury Agenda: Improving Defined Contribution Plans
By Randy Myers The federal government wants defined contribution plans to work more effectively for their participants. Retirement savings plans are looking healthier than they did just a short while ago, but total plan assets slipped to $2.7 trillion in 2008 from $3.8 trillion in 2007. They have rebounded to $3.5 trillion by the first […]
Swap or Not? Regulators Assess Stable Value under Dodd-Frank Act
By Randy Myers Is a stable value fund really a swap? Under the terms of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the over-the-counter derivatives market now falls under the purview of federal regulators. Those regulators–at the Securities & Exchange is reason to believe that stable value funds do not meet […]
Behind the Curtain: 401(k) Particpants Ride Out Market Storms
By Randy Myers Many investors panicked during the stock market downturn that stretched from late 2007 to early 2009, but investors in 401(k) plans proved remarkably unflappable. In examining the retirement plans T. Rowe Price Group Inc. administers on behalf of clients, it found that the percentage of eligible employees who participated in those plans […]
Stable Times Volume 15 Issue 2
The biannual publication of the Stable Value Investment Association that covers both industry concerns and association activities.
Stable Times Volume 15 Issue 1
The biannual publication of the Stable Value Investment Association that covers both industry concerns and association activities.
401(k) System Passes “Trial by Fire”
By Randy Myers Not so long ago—the 1980s, to be precise—it was commonly argued that the self-directed, largely participant-funded 401(k) retirement system would implode if the financial markets experienced a severe crisis. Individual investors, the theory went, would not have the sophistication or the stomach to successfully negotiate a dramatic upheaval in the financial markets. […]
Prudential Strategist Argues for Moderation by Fed in Raising Interest Rates
By Randy Myers With the worst of the financial crisis apparently behind us, the Federal Reserve may try to push interest rates higher toward the end of this year, says Robert Tipp, chief investment strategist for Prudential Insurance Co.’s Prudential Fixed Income unit. But he wouldn’t advise it. A more prudent course, he argues, would […]