By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. As most investors appreciate, trying to time the markets can prove to be a fool's game. We know that timing the tops, bottoms, and dips is incredibly challenging and often leads to...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc Everyone knows that this has been a very challenging year for traditional fixed-income programs. In fact, it has been the most challenging year in the past 40-years. As of yesterday, May 16,...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. I suspect that most participants in the capital markets are aware of the implications of rising US inflation and the impact it has had on US interest rates so far in 2022....

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. Following a flurry of activity during the previous three weeks, the PBGC and Special Financial Assistance (SFA) candidates took a well-deserved breather, as no new applications were either filed or approved. In...

By: Ronald J. Ryan, CFA, CEO, Ryan ALM, Inc. The American Rescue Plan Act became legal as of March 11, 2021. Section 9704 of ARPA provides Special Financial Assistance (SFA) to pension plans who are in critical funding status as...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. Ryan ALM is a (THE) leading voice within the US Pension community regarding the need to protect and preserve defined benefit (DB) pension plans through de-risking strategies. We've been imploring plan sponsors...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. There appears in today's WSJ an article titled, "Pensions' Bad Year Poised to Get Worse" . The writer of the article, Heather Gillers, references data from the Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. You may recall that I wrote on May 3rd that rising US interest rates might just be the antidote needed to slow the demise of DB pension plans, as rising rates make...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. We are pleased to see an acceleration in the approval process for ARPA/SFA applications. As of Friday, May 6, 2022, 23 applications have now been approved by the PBGC. These 23 funds...

By: Russ Kamp, Managing Director, Ryan ALM, Inc. There seems to be a school of thought evolving within SFA eligible multiemployer plans on how to invest the grant's proceeds. We are hearing that plan sponsors and their advisors will invest...