Unstable Value Funds? (II)
Well, here’s a first crack in the foundation for stable value funds. From the article:
The $235 million Lehman vehicle, though, lost 1.7% in value in December because bond prices fell and the insurance backing, called a “wrap” in financial parlance, ended after Lehman’s mid-September bankruptcy filing.
The reason is tied to the wrap agreements negotiated for at least two of the fund’s seven insurance providers, Pacific Life Insurance Co. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Since the full coverage was no longer effective, Invesco severed the arrangements with them.
The 1.7% loss was subtracted from Lehman investors’ accounts, so fund investors ended up receiving about 2% in interest in 2008. The entire situation is causing a stir among stable-value investors, who fear that it may spread to their funds if more bankruptcies crop up. Of course, the shortfall doesn’t come close to the 39% decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index last year.
The Lehman fund’s 1.7% loss is a rare occurrence in the $416 billion stable-value industry, which has had few problems in its 35-year history. More than half of 401(k) plans in the U.S. now offer stable-value funds.
Stable value funds do have credit risk. That credit risk is often spread among AAA and AA corporate names, and among the financial guarantors, MBIA and Ambac, and GSEs like Fannie and Freddie, back when they had those ratings.
Often, Stable value funds would purchase mortgage bonds guaranteed by Fannie, Freddie, or one of the guarantors. They would then purchase a wrap to guarantee that benefit-responsive payments would be made at par, not at market value. All fine, except that the wrap might not last as long as the mortgage bond in a rising interest rate scenario, or that the guarantor might default. The former happened this time.
I’ve written about stable value funds before:
- Unstable Value Funds?
- A Maximum of One Year of Interest Lost
- A Proposal for Money Market Funds, and More and,
- The Biggest Asset Class You Never Heard Of (comprehensive article, at RealMoney)
Stable value funds dodged bullets with Fannie and Freddie. They still have issues with MBIA and Ambac, but the jury is out there. There is one more major risk area for stable value funds: rapidly rising interest rates.
In a situation where short-term interest rates rise rapidly, the crediting rate of the stable value fund will lag the rise significantly, leading some to withdraw when the market value of the fund is less than the book value, leading to a possible run on the fund. Now my proposal, A Proposal for Money Market Funds, and More, could deal with the problem, but that’s not in any of the contracts that I know of.
This is not to scare you out of stable value funds — after all, in a bad market, what does worse? Stocks or stable value? Stocks, of course. But where you can move to other options that are more palatable, like short-term bond funds, money market funds, etc., it could be a good move. Even a blanced fund or a corporate bond fund could work in this environment.
Be aware, and pressure your DC plan providers for more data on the stable value option.
January 11th, 20099:42 pm at
A definite area of concern. However, pressuring your DC Plan provider will do very little. These are not mutual funds. They were until a disclosure and pricing rule forced them to all move back to commingled fund structure. Their reporting guidelines are ridiculous but followed scrupulously by the managers. I’ve found it impossible to get any useful information from any Stable Value fund managers despite many attempts.
January 29th, 200912:12 am at
David, you’re kind of off-base in fearmongering here. Read the WSJ article again, esp. the last paragraph, and the Bloomberg version of same events. ONLY LEHMAN EMPLOYEES ARE TAKING LOSSES — participants at other firms that use Invesco Stable Value funds are fine. This is a tempest in a teapot, and no different than “Wah, wah, I had all my 401(k) money in Enron/ Worldcom/ HealthSouth/ Lehman stock and now I’m ruined.” If you invest in an employer-sponsored savings plan, don’t be surprised if it’s in trouble should your employer get into distress.
January 29th, 200912:46 am at
Bond Newbie — I called it “a first crack in the foundation for stable value funds.” Nothing more.
The stable value funds are loaded with AAA-rated paper, much of which is trading significantly below par at present. If redemptions at par became significant, many stable value funds would fail.
I’ve worked in the business, and think I know it pretty well. I’ve run the stress test scenarios for SV pools, and I know what can break them. A lot of those factors are on the table now, including the possibility of more wrappers failing, which, though ugly-sounding, is the least of the worries here.
I thought I wrote something fairly balanced here. I recognized what would take worse losses — not the stable value funds.