Bond Funds Content

December 4, 2023—Halloween season is well past, but some banking authorities seem happy to continue chasing the perceived “ghoul” of bond fund stress amplification. In trying to make the case that bond funds amplify market shocks, systemic risk regulators have for years twisted and...

Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) represent the largest share of assets in the US retirement market, with assets totaling $13.9 trillion at year-end 2021 (Figure 1). Forty-five percent of this total is held in mutual funds, with IRA mutual fund investors primarily invested in...

Core bond mutual funds’ activities during March 2020 had little impact on the investment grade corporate bond market. According to an ICI study, the timing and small size of core bond mutual funds’ daily net sales of investment grade corporate bonds is inconsistent with some...

Bond mutual funds’ activities during March 2020 had little impact on the investment grade corporate bond market. According to an ICI study, core bond mutual funds, on net, sold only $8 billion of their $780 billion in holdings of investment grade corporate bonds in the first three...

US residents that invest in mutual funds. ICI survey data on the daily activities of bond mutual funds during March 2020 indicate that this assertion does is incorrect. Our survey data—by far and away the most detailed data brought to bear on this narrative—show that the Treasury...

When analyzing the complex and unprecedented market activity of March 2020, it is vital to use comprehensive and accurate data to understand bond mutual funds’ transactions in the Treasury market. Using figures published by the Federal Reserve, commentators have argued that mutual...

New ICI research provides a detailed picture of bond mutual funds’ role in the fixed-income markets during March 2020. ICI urges regulators to use this information when considering policies to enhance the resilience of markets. Otherwise, policies based on inaccurate data or inapt...

Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) represent the largest share of assets in the US retirement market; forty-five percent of this total is held in mutual funds. Last year, IRA mutual fund investors paid average expense ratios similar to those paid by all mutual fund investors (i.e...

The evidence about what happened to financial markets in March 2020 is still far too mixed and preliminary to conclude that new regulation is appropriate for bond mutual funds.

In the past decade, a number of regulators and academics have discussed concerns about the growth in the assets of bond mutual funds, as well as their increasing share of the bond market, especially the corporate bond market. 1 The concern is that bond fund investors, now playing a...