Stocks Rebound in 2Q20; Fixed Income Sees More Modest Returns

U.S. stocks posted double-digit returns, with big gains in global ex-U.S. markets. Treasuries were range-bound during the quarter and most fixed income indices posted solid but not spectacular returns

Main Street vs. Wall Street

While Wall Street was in celebration mode, much of Main Street continued to suffer. Against the backdrop of stellar asset price performance, rising cases of the virus in the U.S. tempered optimism going into quarter-end

Fixed Income Market Offers Many Options for ESG Investors

More investment managers are applying ESG analysis to bonds, and many have developed customized ESG frameworks to specifically evaluate various segments of the global credit market

Private RE Returns Positive; Global REITs Underperform

View Newsletter Private real estate results positive due to income Initial impact of pandemic reflected in 1Q20 results Positive return due to income Industrial real estate performed well. Retail depreciation accelerated this quarter. The dispersion of returns by manager within the NCREIF ODCE Index was due not only to the composition of underlying portfolios but […]

What the Leveraged Loan Selloff Means for Institutional Investors

Leveraged loans are on track for their worst-performing month, with the S&P/LSTA U.S. Leveraged Loan Index down nearly 17% as the quarter nears its end

A Checklist for Assessing Stable Value Funds

Since they are designed to protect investors against declines in interest rates or drops in asset values, stable value funds—and the “wrap issuers” that insure their portfolios of high-quality corporate and government bonds—have drawn considerable scrutiny from institutional investors amid the current market turmoil. Unlike the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, stable value managers are not […]

Some Perspectives for Corporate DB Plan Sponsors

In this blog post we address two key questions facing corporate defined benefit (DB) plan sponsors in this volatile market environment: What does this market volatility mean for my corporate DB plan? Do these short-term moves overwhelm my long-term focus? Q: My marked-to-market funded status just dropped by more than 10%…am I in trouble? A: To answer […]

Staying Calm Amid Turbulent Markets

Market volatility spiked in the latter half of February and has remained elevated, driven by the spread of the coronavirus outside of China.

For Corporate Pension Plans, We Have Good News and Bad News

While corporate pension plans have benefited from the rebound in equities since the bumpy fourth quarter of last year, they are facing a challenge on another front: the long duration rates used to discount pension liabilities have been moving in the other direction—a lot. The discount rate used by the short-duration FTSE Pension Liability Index […]

How STRIPS Can Help Corporate DB Plans

If interest rates decline, STRIPS can help corporate DB plans partially hedge their fixed income allocation using less capital than other options