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Editor's Corner

While it is hard for me to believe, 2007 is just around the corner. Our days are now filled with traditional year-end events. Another Thanksgiving spent with family and friends gorging on turkey and watching football has passed, and I am trying to coordinate all the traditional holiday and school events planned for December. (The traditional winter concert at my sons’ elementary school is coming up. Now that I have a good set of ear plugs, I am even looking forward to hear the band and orchestra perform.)

Continuing another time honored tradtion, our final issue of the Stable Times for the year will highlight the action from the SVIA fall conference. We have again enlisted the valuable assistance of freelance journalist Randy Myers to chronicle the conference proceedings. Consistent with a conference that was packed with topical information for the stable value and retirement-saving industries, this Stable Times offers a selection of topics to rival the dessert selection at the typical Thanksgiving feast.

As I reflect on the issues facing our industry over the last year, I am also struck by something that has been a non-issue. 2006 brought a dramatic continuation of the flattening trend for the U.S. yield curve. The spread between 5-year Treasuries and cash has compressed by almost 200 basis points in the last two years and now is more than 50 basis points inverted. Money market yields now rival stable value returns after a long period of trailing significantly behind. Even with these shifts and reasonably strong equity markets, participants continue to be pleased with the performance of their stable value funds. Cash flow activity for stable value funds has been quite muted. Given the accounting and regulatory-induced challenges that we have been facing, this stability is certainly something for which we can all be thankful.

As 2006 comes to a close, the Stable Times Editorial Board would like to take this opportunity to express its gratitude to the people who have written or solicited writers for our publication this year. Furthermore, we would like to thank SVIA’s Gina Mitchell and Gwen Collick, our graphic artist Ellen Cornett, and grammar and style editor David Lampo for their tireless work on the Stable Times. Finally, we would like to wish all our readers a safe, happy, and healthy New Year.

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