ICI Viewpoints Content

Over the past year, several news stories have focused on stock market volatility, particularly the price swings that occur in the hour prior to the U.S. market’s 4:00 p.m. close. “What’s Behind That Wild Final Hour of Trading?” asked CNNMoney last November.

As gasoline prices approach a national average of $4 per gallon, the role that financial investment flows into commodities markets play is once again in focus. In a forthcoming paper, I examine the relative importance of economic fundamentals and financial investment flows in...

ICI and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have joined together in a legal challenge to a rule by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). We are asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to vacate and set aside the CFTC’s recent amendments to its Rule 4.5.

We are pleased to see that the Financial Stability Oversight Council continues to take a thoughtful approach on the issue of designating “systemically important financial institutions.” That’s in stark contrast to some commentators, who would have regulators rush to put money market...

As expressed forcefully by a group of fund industry leaders last November, America’s current budgetary overreach has clear and dire implications for the 90 million investors that ICI member companies serve. Today, I elaborated on those implications in a speech before a gathering of...

Some recent coverage—including the CFOJournal blog of the Wall Street Journal—suggests that worries about the impact on investors of forcing money market funds to float their net asset value (NAV) may be overblown. The story goes like this: the mark-to-market prices of money market...

In his written testimony on Capitol Hill today, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke created a fuzzy and incomplete picture of money market funds and their investments in European-headquartered financial institutions. Whether by intent or not, the Fed testimony left the...

As a banking regulator who was in office during the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression, Sheila Bair knows that banks and money market funds are not the same. Yet in her recent Huffington Post piece, Bair blurs vital distinctions in an effort to convince the reader that...

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) recently finalized a rule—known as Rule 4.5—that will require many advisers to mutual funds that invest in commodity futures, commodity options, and swaps to register with the agency. This development is deeply troubling for at least two...

Advocates for further regulation of money market funds string together a loose chain of arguments to create the impression that money market funds are bank products, rather than investment securities. From this, they conclude that these funds need bank-like regulation. Sallie...