Corporate pension plan investment strategies are always evolving. Market conditions and funded ratios have changed a lot in the last couple of years. With this as a backdrop, Andy Hunt, senior investment strategist, and Katie Wadley, institutional client director at Allspring Global Investments, discuss why now is the time for investors to consider making improvements to their LDI (liability-driven investing) portfolios.
If you haven’t read the latest revision to Actuarial Standard of Practice No. 4 (ASOP 4)*, or if you still have questions, it’s not too late. We break it down here, focusing on what it is, why it matters, and how it might affect investment portfolios. That’s crucial for pension plan sponsors, but it’s also essential information for other stakeholders, including bond investors.
Most market commentators talk about the U.S. Treasury yield-curve steepness in the context of the short end: T-bill yield versus the 2-year Treasury yield. But given that U.S. pension plans have approximately 80% of their liability risk associated with yields beyond 10 years, a more important metric is the 10-year Treasury yield versus the 30-year Treasury yield (below).
There has been a storm in the U.K. government bonds (gilts) market dramatically affecting pension funds and their liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies. This has precipitated a lot of press coverage and many of our U.S. pension clients are asking questions. Andy Hunt, head of Fixed Income Solutions, along with members of the Allspring Pension Solutions team, discuss what happened and why, what it means for the U.S., and what to do next.
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