By: Ronald J. Ryan, CFA, CEO, Ryan ALM, Inc. Contrary to industry beliefs and practices, pension liabilities are NOT long duration. They are a term structure of monthly benefit payments. When priced under ASC 715 (AA corporate bonds) they are...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. Kudos for the new format for some of the educational sessions at FPPTA, which just concluded on Wednesday. The new format, which consisted of four subject experts and 36 attendees in a...

By : Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. Another week, another ARPA update with little to report. Again, the PBGC has done a wonderful job implementing ARPA's pension legislation in awarding $53.6 billion in Special Financial Assistance (SFA) to...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. I sincerely appreciated the opportunity to speak at the IFEBP's Construction Industry Benefits Conference in Las Vegas yesterday. My topic: Investing Benefit Plan Assets . I focused much of my attention on...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. By now most everyone in the pension industry has read about the Illinois Supreme Court upholding a law signed by Gov. JB Pritzker in 2019 consolidating pensions for Illinois's "down state" police...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. When I was managing the Invesco quantitative group (>$30 billion in AUM), we attempted to take advantage of human biases that keep us from being great investors. By capturing those biases in...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. January has lived up to its billing in Northern NJ this year with frigid temperatures and a little snow. However, there seems to be a bit of thawing as it relates to...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. We have stated unequivocally that recessions do not occur when labor markets are at full employment. The expectation that the US Federal Reserve was going to reduce rates 6-7 times in 2024...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. I have a great appreciation for the research produced by the Center for Retirement Research (CCR) at Boston College and I've admired Alicia Munnell for years, but I have to say that...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM , Inc. In yesterday's weekly update on the PBGC's ARPA implementation, I mentioned that I didn't have any particular insight into why the process of receiving and approving applications seemed to have come...