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Applying Evidence to Theories on Regulated Funds

By Sean Collins

October 12, 2017

Late last month, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) voted to rescind its designation of American International Group (AIG). After requiring a bailout during the financial crisis, the insurer was designated as a non-bank “systemically important financial institution,” or SIFI, in 2013. When FSOC conducted its most recent annual review, it decided AIG no longer warranted “systemic” status.

At first blush, this news wouldn’t seem to have much import for regulated funds. A closer look at FSOC’s reasoning, however, may suggest a more fundamental change in the way it plans to approach future work on systemic risk.

In its 68-page notice explaining the basis for its decision, FSOC makes it clear that it has re-examined one of its key theories—the so-called asset liquidation transmission channel. When FSOC designated AIG as a SIFI, one of the arguments it used was that if AIG ever came under financial distress, “there could be a forced, rapid liquidation of a significant portion of AIG’s assets as a result of [insurance] policyholder surrenders or withdrawals that could cause significant disruptions to key markets, including corporate debt and asset-backed securities markets.”

What does this mean? Stated simply, FSOC conjectured during the designation process that if AIG experienced financial distress, its policyholders could behave like depositors at a bank, causing a “run” on AIG that would cascade through the financial markets.

But in removing AIG’s designation, FSOC has reconsidered that view. It now states that “additional consideration of incentives and disincentives for retail policyholders to surrender policies, including analysis of historical evidence of retail and institutional investor behavior, indicate that there is not a significant risk that asset liquidation by AIG would disrupt trading in key markets or cause significant losses or funding problems for other firms with similar holdings.”

In other words, FSOC has decided to go beyond conjecture to see whether there is historical evidence that insurance policyholders tend to “run.” It didn’t find that.

We find this noteworthy because FSOC has engaged in the same sort of conjecture with respect to regulated stock and bond funds. In an April 2016 statement, FSOC posited that investors in regulated stock and bond funds might be similarly inclined to run from their investments in the face of market declines, forcing funds to sell their assets at fire-sale prices, and resulting in “spillover effects” to other market participants and the broader markets that would threaten financial stability.

FSOC failed to substantiate those contentions with evidence. Nor could it. As ICI has long pointed out, the theory of “forced, rapid liquidation” of fund assets caused by rapid, widespread, redemptions by shareholders in regulated stock and bond funds has never stood up to the test of historical evidence. For example, aggregate shareholder redemptions from equity mutual funds throughout history have been modest, even when markets are stressed—as the figure below shows.

Outflows from Equity Mutual Funds Are Modest, Even During Market Turmoil
Flows as a percent of equity mutual funds’ previous month’s assets; January 1985–August 2017

Figure

Source: Investment Company Institute

Consider what happened from August 2008 to March 2009—in the depths of the financial crisis—when outflows from regulated equity funds totaled just 3.6 percent of those funds’ assets as of August 2008. These relatively minor outflows occurred despite the fact that equity prices, as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, fell by 47 percent from their August 2008 peak to the March 2009 trough.

The reasons for this steady and consistent behavior are simple: regulated stock and bond fund shareholders invest to meet longer-term goals. They view their funds as part of a diversified portfolio intended for retirement, college, homeownership, or some other major objective. Rather than panic when prices fall, they keep their focus on the longer term and ride out the market gyrations.

The asset liquidation transmission theory is not the only tenuous notion that FSOC and others—often looking at the world through a banking lens—have misapplied to regulated funds. For example, contrary to persistent misconceptions:

  • Regulated funds are not unregulated “shadow banks.” Simply put, they aren’t banks, and they aren’t in the shadows. The business model for regulated funds is fundamentally different from that of banks. A bank’s depositors are creditors of the bank. Thus, if the bank fails, depositors could lose their money or their money could be tied up in bankruptcy proceedings. This is what creates the possibility of bank runs. To prevent runs, banks are required to hold capital and, in the United States, the vast majority of bank deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for up to $250,000. In contrast, investors are not creditors of a fund, but owners of the fund’s assets. Fund investors know that they will reap the rewards of fund gains—and absorb the impact of fund losses—on a pro rata basis.

    And the notion that regulated funds operate in the shadows couldn’t be further from the truth. These funds are thoroughly regulated and highly transparent, due most notably to the extensive regulatory and reporting requirements under the Investment Company Act of 1940 and other federal securities laws, as administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This comprehensive, capital markets–based regulation, along with structural and other characteristics of regulated funds, limits risk transmission from funds to the financial system at large.

  • For regulated funds, size does not equate to risk. In the case of banks, the size of a bank’s balance sheet and the amount of its debt go hand in hand. In other words, size equates to risk. In contrast, regulated funds—regardless of size—generally employ little to no balance-sheet leverage, due to regulatory limits and as a matter of normal industry practice.

  • Regulated funds don’t “fail” like banks do. Again, unlike banks, regulated funds do not guarantee returns to investors and have little to no balance sheet leverage. Funds have exit strategies—including liquidation or merger with another fund—that can be executed within the existing regulatory framework. In fact, regulated funds come and go with some regularity with no noticeable effect on the broader financial system.

Such bank-centric theories about regulated funds don’t match up with the facts. And misapplying them to regulated funds—for example, as the basis for designating a fund as a SIFI—would do real damage. SIFI designation would carry with it bank-style regulation, including capital requirements and prudential supervision by the Federal Reserve Board. The result would be conflicting, inappropriate regulatory oversight that could harm fund investors without providing any offsetting gain in financial stability.

By re-examining the asset liquidation transmission channel theory as applied to AIG, FSOC appears to be putting greater weight on evidence and less on conjecture. That’s a development we welcome and encourage.

Sean Collins is senior director, industry and financial analysis, in ICI’s Research Department.

Permalink: https://www.ici.org/viewpoints/view_17_fsoc_aig
 

TOPICS: Bond FundEquity InvestingFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationMutual FundTreasury

The Taper Tantrum—Take II

By Shelly Antoniewicz

December 13, 2016

Long-term interest rates in the United States have been on the rise since summer 2016—slowly creeping up from July through October, and then jumping after the presidential election. Thus far, the response from bond mutual fund investors has been subdued. Nevertheless, various commentators—from the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board to the multinational Financial Stability Board—have expressed concerns that bond fund investors may rush to redeem shares to avoid portfolio losses stemming from unexpected increases in interest rates.

Read more…

TOPICS: Bond FundBondsFederal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFixed IncomeFund RegulationInterest RateMutual FundTreasury

Ignore the IMF’s Uninformed Call for a Third Round of Reforms to U.S. Money Market Funds

By Jane Heinrichs and Chris Plantier

July 23, 2015

A year ago today, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted to adopt sweeping reforms to its rule governing money market funds.

Read more…

TOPICS: Financial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationMoney Market FundsMutual FundTreasury

The IMF on Asset Management: Handle Empirical Results with Care

By Chris Plantier

July 15, 2015

In this ICI Viewpoints series, we’ve examined the wide range of data errors, inconsistencies, results that don’t bear statistical scrutiny, and misinterpretations in the International Monetary Fund’s most recent Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR)—specifically, the chapter on “The Asset Management Industry and Financial Stability.” Those problems primarily involved poor understanding of funds and their investors. We didn’t need advanced statistical methods to uncover them.

Read more…

TOPICS: EuropeFinancial StabilityFund RegulationICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

How SIFI Designation Could Undermine Fund Governance: Parsing the Fed’s Proposal for GE Capital

By Paul Schott Stevens

June 16, 2015

Fund boards and independent directors have a long history of serving shareholder interests, yet today they face an alarming prospect that could threaten their ability to continue doing so.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial StabilityFund GovernanceFund RegulationMutual FundShareholderTreasury

SEC Chair White Affirms Agency Has Tools to Address Risks in Industry

By Rachel McTague

May 8, 2015

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has the tools it needs to address systemic risks to the extent they exist in the asset management industry, said SEC Chair Mary Jo White at the opening session on the final day of ICI’s annual General Membership Meeting (GMM). White also announced that David Grim—who had been serving as acting director of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management—has just been named director of the division. White said she is thrilled that Grim, a 20-year veteran of the SEC in the investment management area, is taking the reins at a time when the Commission is moving forward to implement proactive regulations for the industry.

Read more…

TOPICS: BondsCybersecurityEuropeEventsExchange-Traded FundsFederal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGMMGovernment AffairsInterest RateInternationalMutual FundShareholderTreasury

Opinion: The Tax Threat to Your Mutual Fund

By Mike McNamee

May 7, 2015

Vanguard Chairman and CEO Bill McNabb sent “an open letter to all mutual fund investors” in the opinion pages of Thursday’s Wall Street Journal. His message: fund investors face a clear threat of higher costs, weaker returns, and a bailout tax to salvage other failing financial institutions—all if regulators get their way in imposing new rules on funds or their managers.

Read more…

TOPICS: 401(k)Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationMutual FundRetirement PolicySavingsShareholderTradingTreasury

The IMF Quietly Changes Its Data, but Not Its Views

By Chris Plantier

April 21, 2015

On Friday, April 10, we pointed out that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) apparently had vastly overstated the size and growth of bond fund holdings of emerging market bonds in its latest Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR).

Read more…

TOPICS: Bond FundBondsEuropeFinancial StabilityFund RegulationICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

Federal Reserve Reverse Repo Facility Helps Stabilize Short-Term Money Markets

By Chris Plantier

April 17, 2015

Following a pattern observed at the end of recent quarters, money market fund holdings of European issuers dropped at the end of March, although the decline was not as large as the previous quarter, ending December 2014. As we have noted before, for regulatory reasons European banks have been paring their balance sheets at the end of each quarter, resulting in a temporary decline in their desire to borrow from money market funds.

Read more…

TOPICS: BondsEuropeFederal ReserveFinancial MarketsFixed IncomeFund RegulationInvestment EducationMoney Market FundsTreasury

The IMF Is Entitled to Its Opinion, but Not to Its Own Facts

By Sean Collins and Chris Plantier

April 10, 2015

On Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund released its latest Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR), including a chapter on the asset management industry and financial stability.

Read more…

TOPICS: EuropeFinancial StabilityFund RegulationICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

Designation’s Vast Reach into Investor Portfolios

By Paul Schott Stevens

March 24, 2015

On Wednesday, March 25, I’ll testify before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs about the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s process for designating nonbank firms as “systemically important financial institutions,” or SIFIs.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsMutual FundShareholderTreasury

European Banks Borrow Less from MMFs; the Federal Reserve Borrows More

By Chris Plantier

January 20, 2015

As we discussed in April and July of last year, due to regulatory pressures European banks generally have become less willing to borrow from U.S. money market funds (MMFs), especially at the end of the quarter. This quarter-end effect was particularly large at the end of December 2014.

Read more…

TOPICS: EuropeFederal ReserveMoney Market FundsTreasury

The IMF Makes All of OFR’s Mistakes—And More

By Sean Collins and Chris Plantier

October 10, 2014

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) just released its latest Global Financial Stability Report. In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, it is déjà vu all over again.

The IMF report bears more than a passing resemblance to Asset Management and Financial Stability, published by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research (OFR) in September 2013. The OFR report was met with widespread criticism for its misinformed discussion of hypothetical “vulnerabilities” posed by mutual funds and other asset managers.

Read more…

TOPICS: EuropeFinancial StabilityFund RegulationICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

Securities Lending by Mutual Funds, ETFs, and Closed-End Funds: Are the Risks Systemic?

By Bob Grohowski

September 18, 2014

The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR), and the Financial Stability Board (FSB) are charged with identifying systemic risks.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsMutual FundTreasury

Securities Lending by Mutual Funds, ETFs, and Closed-End Funds: Regulators’ Concerns

By Bob Grohowski

September 17, 2014

This post is the third in a series that focuses on securities lending by U.S. regulated funds—mutual funds, exchange traded funds (ETFs), and closed-end funds that are registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsMutual FundTreasury

Securities Lending by Mutual Funds, ETFs, and Closed-End Funds: The Market

By Bob Grohowski and Sean Collins

September 16, 2014

As the potential risks of securities lending are discussed and debated by the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR), and the Financial Stability Board (FSB), it is important to try to understand both the overall size of the securities lending market and the share of it attributable to different participants.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsMutual FundTreasury

Securities Lending by Mutual Funds, ETFs, and Closed-End Funds: The Basics

By Bob Grohowski

September 15, 2014

The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) recently announced that it has directed its staff to “undertake a more focused analysis of industry-wide products and activities to assess potential risks associated with the asset management industry.”

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsMutual FundTreasury

Happy Birthday ERISA! Congratulations on 40 Years

By Sarah Holden and Elena Barone Chism

September 2, 2014

Today marks the 40th birthday of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Signed into law on September 2, 1974, ERISA introduced bold steps to safeguard Americans’ employer-sponsored pensions and created the individual retirement account (IRA). Assets earmarked for retirement totaled $0.4 trillion at year-end 1974 (see the figure below). At this modest start, private-sector defined benefit (DB) plans accounted for 35 percent of the total; federal, state, and local plans for 34 percent; private-sector defined contribution (DC) plans for 17 percent; annuities for 13 percent; and there was a mere glimmer of IRA assets by year-end. Currently, total U.S. retirement assets are $23.0 trillion, and their composition has shifted considerably over the past 40 years.

Read more…

TOPICS: 401(k)Fixed IncomeGovernment AffairsInvestment EducationInvestor ResearchPolicy ResearchRetirement PolicyRetirement ResearchSavingsTaxesTreasury

“Preemptive Runs” and Money Market Fund Gates and Fees: Theory Meets Practice

By Sean Collins and Chris Plantier

August 20, 2014

A recent post on the blog of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York discusses the possibility that new rules by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allowing money market funds to temporarily impose fees or gates during times of market instability could increase the risk of preemptive runs on such funds during times of stress, rather than helping to limit destabilizing withdrawals, as the SEC intended.

Read more…

TOPICS: EuropeFederal ReserveFinancial StabilityFund GovernanceFund RegulationGovernment AffairsInternationalMoney Market FundsTreasury

Living Wills and an Orderly Resolution Mechanism? A Poor Fit for Mutual Funds and Their Managers

By Frances Stadler and Rachel Graham

August 12, 2014

During the global financial crisis, the distress or disorderly failure of some large, complex, highly leveraged financial institutions (banks, insurance companies, and investment banks) required direct intervention by governments—including a number of bailouts—to stem the damage and prevent it from spreading. One focus of postcrisis reform efforts has been to ensure that regulators are better equipped to “resolve” a failing institution in a way that minimizes risks to the broader financial system, as well as costs to taxpayers. The new tools provided under the Dodd-Frank Act include requirements for the largest bank holding companies and nonbank systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) to prepare comprehensive resolution plans in advance (known as “living wills”), and creation of a new “orderly resolution” mechanism for financial institutions whose default could threaten financial stability.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsMutual FundShareholderTreasury

Across the Universe: Seeing the Whole Picture in the Systemic Risk Debate

By Paul Schott Stevens

July 30, 2014

Astrophysicists have discovered that they can’t account for the composition and behavior of the universe without including “dark matter”—matter that can’t be observed directly.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsMutual FundShareholderTreasury

The Real Lessons to Be Learned from 1994’s Bond Market

By Brian Reid

July 29, 2014

A recent “Heard on the Street” column in the Wall Street Journal (“Heeding 1994's Bond-Market Lesson,” July 27, 2014) is correct in saying that there’s a lesson to be learned from the 1994 bond market—but it draws the wrong lesson.

Read more…

TOPICS: Bond FundBondsFederal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFixed IncomeFund RegulationInterest RateMutual FundRetirement ResearchSavingsTradingTreasury

“The Age of Asset Management”—Less Risk, Not More

By Brian Reid

July 24, 2014

The following was written by ICI’s chief economist, Brian Reid, and published on FT Alphaville on July 23. For more information on ICI’s views and research on financial stability, please visit our Financial Stability Resource Center.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

European Banks Significantly Reduced Borrowing from U.S. Money Market Funds in June

By Chris Plantier

July 18, 2014

As we discussed in March and April, European banks have generally become less willing to borrow from U.S. money market funds due to regulatory pressures, especially at the end of the quarter. Specifically, the new Basel III requirements seek to increase capital ratios of banks and explicitly limit how much banks fund their operations through short-term borrowing (which includes short-term securities banks issue that money market funds invest in). This quarter-end effect was particularly strong at the end of June as European bank regulators continued to monitor bank progress toward meeting the new Basel III requirements, which will be fully phased in over the next few years.

Read more…

TOPICS: BondsEuropeFederal ReserveFinancial MarketsFixed IncomeFund RegulationInvestment EducationMoney Market FundsTreasury

Now Off the Hill, Senator Snowe Still Brimming with Ideas, Advice

By Rob Elson

June 5, 2014

U.S. policy is ripe for reform in a number of key areas, but changes to ease the polarized political environment must come first, former U.S. senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) told the crowd during the final session of ICI’s 56th annual General Membership Meeting (GMM), held May 20–22 in Washington, DC.

Read more…

TOPICS: CybersecurityEventsFederal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGMMGovernment AffairsMutual FundRetirement PolicyShareholderTreasury

Former ICI President Matt Fink Decries FSOC’s “Revisionist History”

By Mike McNamee

May 30, 2014

Arguments that large stock and bond mutual funds are prone to “runs” that can destabilize markets go back many decades, and are as misguided now as they were then, argues Matt Fink, ICI president from 1991 to 2004, and author of The Rise of Mutual Funds: An Insider's View.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsMutual FundTreasury

Errors of the Times: Getting the FSOC Debate All Wrong

By Mike McNamee

May 23, 2014

New York Times columnist Floyd Norris makes a number of fundamental errors in his Friday column about the House Financial Services Committee hearing and the broader debate about the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and its review of asset management.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

SEC Chair White Stresses Need for FSOC to Consult Sources for Necessary Expertise

By Rachel McTague

May 22, 2014

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Mary Jo White today called for the U.S. Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to use outside expertise to the degree necessary in its process of designating systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs).  She asserted that it is “enormously important for FSOC, before it makes any decision of any kind, to make sure it has the necessary expertise on any of those issues.”

Read more…

TOPICS: EventsFederal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund GovernanceFund RegulationGMMGovernment AffairsMoney Market FundsMutual FundOperations and TechnologyShareholderTradingTreasury

GMM Policy Forum: BlackRock’s Larry Fink Speaks with ICI’s Paul Stevens

By Todd Bernhardt

May 21, 2014

The fund industry needs to stop focusing on the moment and start focusing on outcomes when advising investors on their resources, said Laurence D. Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, at ICI’s Annual Policy Forum, part of the Institute’s 56th General Membership Meeting (GMM).

Read more…

TOPICS: 401(k)BondsEventsFinancial MarketsFund RegulationGMMInternationalInvestment EducationMutual FundRetirement PolicySavingsShareholderTreasury

“Market Tantrums” and Mutual Funds: A Second Look

By Sean Collins and Chris Plantier

May 19, 2014

Over the past year, policymakers who are focused on financial stability have pursued a theory that mutual fund investors can destabilize financial markets by redeeming from funds when markets decline. According to this theory, redemptions by fund investors lead fund managers to sell securities; those sales drive asset prices down further and, in turn, spur more investor flight, redemptions, and price declines.

Read more…

TOPICS: Bond FundBondsFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFixed IncomeFund RegulationInterest RateInvestor ResearchMutual FundTradingTreasury

For Concerns About Risk, a Better Way Forward

By Mike McNamee

May 16, 2014

Since the financial crisis, regulators in the United States and abroad have been looking for ways to prevent a repeat. But recently it seems they’ve gone off course.

Read more…

TOPICS: Financial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

Overseas Overreach

By Mike McNamee

May 15, 2014

The Financial Stability Board (FSB)—composed of financial regulators and central bankers from around the globe—is proposing a flawed methodology that inappropriately puts regulated U.S. funds under scrutiny for possible designation as global systemically important financial institutions—or G-SIFIs.

Read more…

TOPICS: Financial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

How SIFI Designation Could Lead to a New Taxpayer Bailout

By Mike McNamee

May 14, 2014

We have spent the past several days discussing why efforts by international and domestic regulators to examine mutual funds as sources of systemic risk are unnecessary and inappropriate.

Read more…

TOPICS: Financial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsMutual FundTreasury

Who Are the FSB 14?

By Mike McNamee

May 13, 2014

In their search for ways that investment funds can pose risks to the financial system, regulators and central bankers from around the globe have proposed an arbitrary threshold: any investment fund with assets of more than $100 billion should automatically be subjected to further examination and consideration as a possible “global systemically important financial institution,” or G-SIFI.

Read more…

TOPICS: Financial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

The Market Crash That Never Came

By Mike McNamee

May 12, 2014

U.S. and international banking regulators, in their search for ways that mutual funds and their managers could threaten financial stability, have come up with a simple story: fund investors and asset managers “crowd or ‘herd’ into popular asset classes or securities” and thus “magnify market volatility.”

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

Size by Itself Doesn’t Matter—Leverage Does

By Mike McNamee

May 9, 2014

Second in a series of Viewpoints postings on funds and financial stability.

The threshold set by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) for examining whether a regulated fund could pose risk to the financial system should be redrawn—or better yet, withdrawn.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

SIFI Designation for Funds: Unnecessary and Harmful

By Mike McNamee

May 8, 2014

U.S. and international regulators are examining whether asset managers or the investment funds that they offer could be sources of risk to the overall financial system and should thus be designated as systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs).

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

ICYMI: "The Feds Target Money Managers"

By Mike McNamee

May 7, 2014

Yesterday’s editorial in the Wall Street Journal, “The Feds Target Money Managers,” neatly summed up the case against treating asset managers as systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) and subjecting them to bank-style regulation.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

ICYMI: Congress Asks Questions About SIFI Designation and Asset Managers; SEC Chair White Provides Telling Answers

By Mike McNamee

April 30, 2014

DC scene setter, 2013–2014: The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) is examining asset managers for possible “systemically important financial institution” (SIFI) designation, which would bring with it enhanced prudential regulation from the Federal Reserve. Such “bank-style” regulation is foreign to U.S. capital markets.

Read more…

TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

ICI Statement: FSOC Seeking “Pretexts” to Designate Funds

By Mike McNamee

April 24, 2014

ICI President and CEO Paul Schott Stevens today made the following statement in response to media reports that the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) has stepped up its review of major asset managers—which could lead to their designation as “systemically important financial institutions,” or SIFIs—based on boilerplate metrics.

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TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

Seasonality, U.S. Money Market Funds, and the Borrower of Last Resort

By Chris Plantier

April 16, 2014

The March money market fund holdings data indicate a large drop in the share of fund assets allocated to European counterparties and a large increase in the share of fund assets allocated to U.S. counterparties. This shift is likely temporary and reflects reduced willingness of European banks to borrow from money market funds at the end of the quarter, rather than reduced demand from money market funds. Also, the increase in lending to U.S. counterparties is almost entirely due to the large increase in money market fund lending to the Federal Reserve via its overnight reverse-repo (repurchase agreement) facility.

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TOPICS: BondsEuropeFederal ReserveFinancial MarketsFixed IncomeFund RegulationInvestment EducationMoney Market FundsTreasury

ICI Responds to the FSB Consultation on Systemic Risk and Investment Funds

April 8, 2014

In early January, the Financial Stability Board (FSB)—an international group of financial authorities—published a consultation paper on the issue of systemic risk and investment funds.

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TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

ICI Response to Bank of England Haldane Speech on Asset Management and Potential Risk

By Mike McNamee

April 4, 2014

Today, ICI President and CEO Paul Schott Stevens made the following comment in response to a speech by Andy Haldane, currently executive director of the Bank of England and slated to become its chief economist in June.

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TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

U.S. Prime Money Market Funds and European Borrowing

By Chris Plantier

March 18, 2014

European holdings by U.S. prime money market funds have fluctuated significantly since early 2011.

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TOPICS: BondsFederal ReserveFinancial MarketsFixed IncomeFund RegulationInvestment EducationMoney Market FundsTreasury

Why Asset Management Is Not a Source of Systemic Risk

By Paul Schott Stevens

March 17, 2014

This Viewpoints post is a summary of a speech given by ICI President and CEO Paul Schott Stevens at the Mutual Funds and Investment Management Conference. The entire speech is now available.

Since September, U.S. and international regulators have released reports suggesting that asset managers or the funds that they offer may be sources of risk to the overall financial system. ICI does not agree that the asset management sector poses systemic risk. Nonetheless, these reports could be the predicate for new, bank-style prudential regulation of the asset management industry—which could significantly harm funds and the investors who use them.

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TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalMutual FundTreasury

Money Market Funds and Liquidity Ratios: Why So High and Stable?

By Chris Plantier

February 19, 2014

Second in a series of posts about ICI’s new data release, a monthly compilation and summary of portfolio data from taxable money market funds. To find out more, read the first post about the new data summary or this list of answers to frequently asked questions.

The SEC’s 2010 money market fund reforms require taxable funds to hold at least 30 percent of their assets in securities that are deemed to be liquid within five business days (known as weekly liquidity) and at least 10 percent of their assets in securities that are deemed to be liquid in one business day (known as daily liquidity). In practice, money market funds—especially government money market funds—hold liquidity well above these minimum standards, and these ratios change very little in any given month.

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TOPICS: BondsFederal ReserveFinancial MarketsFixed IncomeFund RegulationInvestment EducationMoney Market FundsTreasury

ICI’s New Data Release: Further Enhancing the Transparency of Money Market Funds

By Chris Plantier

January 21, 2014

The 2010 reforms to money market mutual funds greatly enhanced the transparency of these funds, giving regulators, analysts, and investors greater insight into important elements of funds’ holdings and operations.

The reforms required funds to disclose their entire portfolio holdings to the public on their company websites five business days after the end of each month. Money market funds also are required to file a more detailed disclosure—SEC Form N-MFP—with the Securities and Exchange Commission directly. The SEC releases this more detailed data to the public 60 days after it’s filed. The SEC does not, however, summarize the data, leaving the public with no non-commercial access to a broad look at holdings across the industry.

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TOPICS: BondsFederal ReserveFinancial MarketsFixed IncomeFund RegulationInvestment EducationMoney Market FundsTreasury

Column Makes the Same Mistakes as OFR

By Paul Schott Stevens

January 20, 2014

In recent months, both the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Financial Research (OFR) and international regulators such as the Financial Stability Board (FSB) have examined whether asset managers pose risks to financial stability. One report is deeply flawed; the other offers a more informed view. Unfortunately, Gretchen Morgenson’s New York Times column (“Bailout Risk, Far Beyond the Banks,” January 12) veers toward the flawed report.

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TOPICS: Federal ReserveFinancial MarketsFinancial StabilityFund RegulationGovernment AffairsICI GlobalInternationalTreasury

Money Market Funds and the Debt Ceiling: What Do We Know?

By Brian Reid

October 14, 2013

As the U.S. Treasury reaches the limits of its borrowing authority this week, markets and the media are focusing on the risk that the United States will default on its debt and fail to pay interest or principal on maturing Treasury securities, perhaps before the end of October.

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TOPICS: Bond FundBondsFederal ReserveFinancial MarketsGovernment AffairsMoney Market FundsTreasury

Getting the Facts Right on Money Market Funds

By Paul Schott Stevens

September 18, 2013

This week, I testified before Congress at a hearing on the issue of money market funds and recent regulatory proposals from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that would amend the rules governing these funds.

The hearing provided an excellent opportunity to continue to educate Congress on the benefits that money market funds bring to investors and to the economy as a whole. In my testimony, I emphasized the Institute’s views on making sure that regulatory proposals do not upset the crucial role that money market funds play.

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TOPICS: Financial MarketsGovernment AffairsMoney Market FundsTreasury

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