A Consultant’s Perspective on Stable Value
A lot changed in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, including the way retirement plan sponsors and their advisors think about stable value funds. “Twenty years ago, clients wanted a fully benefit responsive, competitive yield from their stable value fund, with no onerous restrictions if they wanted to cancel their contract,” observes plan consultant Angelo Auriemma. “Then the financial crisis hit, […]
Stable Value and the Small-Plan Market
Stable value funds continue to play an important role in smaller defined contribution plans, and industry insiders suggest there’s little reason to believe that won’t continue to be the case going forward. Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs is among the segment’s champions. When it decided to acquire stable value money manager Dwight Asset Management earlier this year, says David Solomon, head of defined […]
New Reporting Requirements Provide Insight into Stable Value Fees
Stable value funds that are managed as individual accounts for a single retirement savings plan have the lowest expense ratios in the stable value marketplace, a new survey from the SVIA confirms. Under new Department of Labor (DOL) regulations, defined contribution plans this year began reporting to their plan participants detailed information about the costs of the investment options in their plans. The […]
Retirement Readiness: A Global Challenge
The U.S. isn’t alone in facing a retirement readiness challenge. European countries are staring at many of the same problems: an aging population marked by a tidal wave of Baby Boomers in or approaching retirement, and fewer workers coming along behind them to support old-age entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare in the US. The citizenry in those countries are […]
SVIA-LIMRA Stable Value Sales and Assets Survey in Stable Times
The SVIA-LIMRA Stable Value Sales and Assets Survey demonstrates the durability of stable value funds. The biannual Sales and Assets survey differs from other Association surveys, not only because it is conducted in partnership with LIMRA, but also because of the survey respondents. Most SVIA surveys focus on stable value managers. The Sales and Assets Survey respondents are the bank and insurance company issuers […]
A Dodd-Frank Update: Stable Value Still in Limbo
Stable value wrap contracts aren’t considered swap contracts under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010—and they won’t be unless the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) determine that stable value contracts are swaps. A major goal of the Dodd-Frank Act was to bring greater transparency and regulatory oversight to over-the-counter derivatives, or, in the […]
Marketplace Realities: Opportunities for Stable Value
Addressing the SVIA’s annual Fall Forum 2012 in Washington, D.C., Eric Levy, senior vice president, Product Solutions Management for Lincoln Financial Group, declared that for many retirement plan participants, the investment landscape now appears dramatically more risky than it did five years ago. Following the stock market crash that began in 2007, he noted, nearly a third of the participants in defined contribution plans who […]
SVIA Quarterly Survey in Stable Times
SVIA’s Quarterly Characteristics Survey demonstrates the virtues of stable value: consistent positive returns, principal preservation as well as having the lowest correlation to stocks as compared to other investments, which means stable value can act as a diversifier. For the third quarter of 2012, stable value fund assets included in the survey were $445 billion, […]
DOL Continues to Refine ERISA Rules and Regulations
The Department of Labor has issued many new rules governing retirement plans over the past few years, but its work is hardly done, Michael Davis, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), told participants at the 2012 SVIA Fall Forum. Davis recited a list of his agency’s recent rulemaking accomplishments, including issuing proposed regulations that would require additional disclosures about […]