Author: Mary Pat Campbell

Inside the Reddit army that’s crushing Wall Street

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/29/investing/wallstreetbets-reddit-culture/index.html

Excerpt:

This past week has been a banner one for Reddit’s island of misfit investors.

WallStreetBets exploded into the mainstream, moving from the front page of Reddit to the front page of the New York Times and nearly every other major news site. The subreddit’s short-squeeze of GameStop helped shoot up the price of the video game retailer’s stock a mind-boggling 1,700% from the beginning of January to Wednesday (before it fell again Thursday), captivating the minds and wallets of investors — both casual and institutional — and financial regulators.

But while millions are now discovering WallStreetBets for the first time, it has been building momentum throughout the pandemic. One can trace its epic rise to a perfect storm of favorable conditions: the exponential growth of the app Robinhood and its no-fee options trading, the extreme volatility Covid-19 brought to the markets, the stimulus checks mailed to millions of Americans, the lack of televised sports for much of the year, and the unwanted free time stuck at home the pandemic has forced on many people.

Author: Jon Sarlin

Publication Date: 30 January 2021

Publication Site: CNN

Where Did Americans Move in 2020?

Mary Pat Campbell
Where Did Americans Move in 2020?

Excerpt:

United Van Lines, the largest moving company in the United States, keeps track of its clients’ migration among the 48 contiguous states. It publishes that data each January, comparing the number of inbound moves to outbound moves for each state. As those who use United Van Lines are individuals and companies using large moving trucks, this data is only a subset of all moves, but the National Movers Study still provides a targeted look at the types of interstate migration patterns we can expect to see in government-issued data once it becomes available.

Author: Janelle Camanga

Publication Date: 31 January 2021

Publication Site: Tax Foundation

NJ Pensions Funding WC Insurers

Mary Pat Campbell
NJ Pensions Funding WC Insurers

Excerpt:

The New Jersey State Comptroller released a report examining a practice within the state’s Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) that allows state, school and local government employees injured on the job to seek weekly benefits, a lump sum settlement or continuing medical coverage, in addition to an accidental disability pension.

As deleterious as this practice may be for the state pension fund, eliminating it will only cost taxpayers more when the bigger picture is considered.

The DWC’s policies encourage workers’ compensation petitioners to settle claims that undermine New Jersey’s pension funds, provide windfalls to workers’ compensation insurance providers, including joint insurance funds and private insurance companies, and provide medical monitoring and coverage to employees without evaluating whether these benefits are justified by the nature of the injury. 

Author: John Bury

Publication Date: 4 February 2021

Publication Site: Burypensions

Why women are less likely than men to die from covid-19

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/02/04/why-women-are-less-likely-than-men-to-die-from-covid-19

Graph:

Excerpt:

MEN ARE around 1.7 times more likely than women to die from covid-19, according to a recent paper by researchers at Yale University, published in Science. Men older than 30 have a significantly greater mortality risk. That is striking, but perhaps should not come as a surprise. Human lifespans have climbed steadily in recent decades, but wide disparities remain between women and men (see chart). Globally women live nearly five years longer than men, up from three years in 1950. The reasons for that gap are both biological and environmental, and help to explain why more men are dying from covid-19.

Publication Date: $ February 2021

Publication Site: The Economist

The Yield Curve Is the Steepest It Has Been in Years. Here’s What That Means for Investors.

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-yield-curve-is-the-steepest-it-has-been-in-years-heres-what-that-means-for-investors-51612462158?mod=hp_columnists

Excerpt:

Long-term Treasury yields have been rising much faster than shorter-term yields, a sign that investors are betting on further acceleration in the U.S.’s economic recovery.

The steepness (or flatness) of the yield curve—the change in yields across different Treasury maturities—is seen as an indicator of economic growth. When the curve “inverts,” or long-term yields fall below short term yields, it is seen as a recession warning. Now the curve is getting steeper, a sign that investors expect stronger U.S. growth and inflation…

Author: Alexandra Scaggs

Publication Date: 4 February 2021

Publication Site: Barron’s

14th Annual Survey of Emerging Risks Key Findings

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.soa.org/resources/research-reports/2021/14th-annual-survey/

Description:

The Casualty Actuarial Society, Canadian Institute of Actuaries, and the Society of Actuaries are pleased to make available results from the 2020 Emerging Risks Survey, the fourteenth in the series. Conducted by Max J. Rudolph of Rudolph Financial Consulting LLC, the survey incorporated a set of Emerging Risks defined by the World Economic Forum as the basis for several of the questions.  The survey also included questions related to current risk management topics.

Now available is a report presenting the major findings from the study. The full report will be released later in the year.

Author: Max J. Rudolph, FSA, CFA, CERA, MAAA

Rudolph Financial Consulting, LLC

Publication Date: January 2021

Publication Site: Society of Actuaries

Georgia’s $90 billion teacher pension system has seen big COVID recovery

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgias-90-billion-teacher-pension-system-has-seen-big-covid-recovery/FWNDQPFBYVECRNO4GSF7AKVF2I/

Excerpt:

Next year’s state budget proposal includes an extra $66 million for Georgia’s massive teacher and university pension system to keep it on solid financial footing.

But after not meeting its assumed rate of investment return in fiscal 2020 — which ended June 30 — the more than $90 billion Teachers Retirement System has made a strong recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic, as did the investment markets it relies on to make sure it can pay pensions to 137,000 former educators.

A similar program that provides pensions to 50,000 state employees — the Employees Retirement System — saw a similar bounce back.

Buster Evans, executive director of the TRS and a former school superintendent, told a legislative retirement committee Tuesday that the teacher system saw a return on investments in 2020 of about 15%, which is pretty close to the return for the S&P 500-stock index.

“We are glad we had a V-shaped recovery,” Evans said.

That’s good news for a system relied on by more than 400,000 former and current educators to provide retirement benefits.

The system has had its ups and downs in recent years, with the state having to make huge contributions at times to keep the books in good shape. Those taxpayer contributions have prompted Republican lawmakers to raise the possibility of making changes to the pension programs, something teacher groups have fought off.

When the markets plummeted at the beginning of the pandemic, the system’s assets lost billions of dollars in value.

“There was a sick feeling in my stomach,” Evans told the TRS board last year.

But the TRS has ridden the wave of market gains since then.

Author: James Salzer

Publication Date: 3 February 2021

Publication Site: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Pension Funds Are Mixed or Mum on More Cash for Apollo

Mary Pat Campbell
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/business/apollo-pension-funds.html

Excerpt:

California’s huge public retirement system, for one, offered only cautious support after new disclosures of financial ties between the firm’s chief, Leon Black, and Jeffrey Epstein.

When investors in Apollo Global Management learned last week that the firm’s chief executive had paid $158 million to the registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, they hardly blinked.

After the private equity firm announced the figure, revealed by an outside investigation, its stock rose nearly 7 percent. That was a far different response from three months ago, when shares plunged over concerns about the financial ties between Mr. Epstein and the chief executive, Leon Black.

…..

A more important test could come the next time Apollo seeks to raise money from the 1,500 pension plans, foundations, sovereign wealth funds and other institutions that invest with it. These limited partners fuel its ability to carry out corporate buyouts, extend loans to companies and make other investments.

So far, their response has been mixed. One of the biggest public pension plans in the United States — the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS — offered only cautious support.

Author: Matthew Goldstein

Publication Date: 3 February 2021

Publication Site: NY Times

What Raising Retirement Age Does to Retirement Rates

Mary Pat Campbell
What Raising Retirement Age Does to Retirement Rates

Excerpt:

The most popular age at which to start claiming Social Security benefits is the minimum of 62, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, even though most financial professionals will encourage their clients to hold off on claiming as long as they can, barring any exigent circumstances. A paper from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College quantifies the impact that raising the age has on retirement behaviors.

Increasing the full retirement age for Social Security decreased the early retirement rate by about 30% for men and 20% for women, according to the paper published in January. The paper, “The Effect of Early Claiming Benefit Reduction on Retirement Rates,” was written by Damir Cosic, senior research associate, and C. Eugene Steuerle, fellow and the Richard B. Fisher chair, at the Urban Institute. They used data from the Current Population Survey to compare the effect of FRA reforms on early retirement rates.

Author: Danielle Andrus

Publication Date: 3 February 2021

Publication Site: 401k Specialist

Retirement age? Super Bowl coaches just getting started

Mary Pat Campbell
Retirement age? Super Bowl coaches just getting started

Excerpt:

There’s no retirement age in the NFL, and that’s a good thing for Super Bowl-bound Kansas City and Tampa Bay.

Andy Reid and Bruce Arians are two of the league’s five oldest coaches. Reid is closing in on 63; Arians turned 68 last October. They have a combined 55 years of NFL experience and spent nearly another three decades working at the college level.

Neither seems close to calling it a career. Instead, they’re showing that bald heads and gray facial hair might be a better choice than young and spry at football’s most important leadership position. These guys might just be getting started, too.

Author: Associated Press

Publication Date: 28 January 2021

Publication Site: ABC27