Pension indicators showed improvement last month, according to Hartland. The consulting firm found that pension liabilities are down and employer contributions increased during September.
Hartland’s Grant Guyuron reports that pension liabilities fell 1.1%-1.7%, according to the FTSE Pension Liability Indices. This is a continuation of a longer-term trend throughout 2018, Guyuron indicates, adding that liabilities have fallen 4.6%-7.5% this year.
The results for assets were not as uniformly good, according to Guyuron. He notes that the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate High Yield Index, the Standard & Poors 500 and the MSCI EAFE Index all showed growth in basis points in September of 56, 57 and 87 bps respectively. However, he also noted that the value of U.S. small caps stocks and MSCI emerging market equities fell. Still, the net result, Guyuron says, is that the funding status of frozen pension plans probably improved.
Corporate contributions to pension plans in the first half of September were “exceptionally high,” Guyuron says, because of changes to their tax treatment that kicked in on Sept. 15 under the Tax Cut and Jobs Act.
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