ICI Urges Caution Around California Secure Choice Program

The California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program has received a lot of positive press for bringing much-needed attention to a difficult policy issue—but others warn the program could do more harm than good.

An open letter from the Investment Company Institute (ICI) to California Governor Jerry Brown warns the governor and legislature to “carefully examine the costs and risks of legislation to implement the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program and stop it before it is implemented.”

ICI’s letter suggests in pretty stark terms that the financial cost of the program as designed, for taxpayers and businesses in California, is essentially unknown and potentially subject to be much greater than anticipated. As ICI explains, the program “would automatically enroll private-sector workers who don’t have employer-sponsored retirement plans in a state-run plan funded through payroll deductions.”

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“Though ICI supports efforts to improve retirement savings … the California Secure Choice Program depends on many factors, including the opt-out and contribution rates of enrolled workers; legal and compliance costs relating to various federal laws; administrative costs in setting up and maintaining the program; and potentially significant costs that may arise later if market returns generated by the program’s investments are insufficient to cover promised benefits to participating workers,” ICI warns. “California taxpayers or Secure Choice Program participants—or most likely both—will find themselves bearing unanticipated costs if the program advances.”

ICI observes that legislation authorizing the program rightly seeks to limit the state’s liability, but it argues future state policymakers “are nevertheless likely to feel an obligation to cover any shortfalls or excessive expenses that the program incurs.”

“Potential amendments to the legislation appear unlikely to affect ICI’s economic analysis of the program’s risks and costs,” the group explains. “Secure Choice—as currently structured—does not present a viable means of expanding meaningful retirement savings for private-sector workers in California and carries tremendous risks that could put taxpayers on the hook for a bailout.”

ICI President and CEO Paul Schott Stevens suggests the analysis used to advance the underlying Secure Choice legislation “paints an overly optimistic picture of this program’s success and dangerously understates the economic risks to the state of California.” Explaining the ICI’s interest in the matter, Stevens observes about half of defined contribution plan and individual retirement account (IRA) assets are invested in mutual funds, “which makes the mutual fund industry especially attuned to the needs of retirement savers.”

NEXT: ICI’s harsh analysis 

The ICI analysis cites in particular the risk that Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) lawsuits could likely affect the operation and cost of the program; and “whether the investment structures contemplated by the Secure Choice Program would result in registration obligations, and costly compliance, reporting and disclosure obligations, under federal securities laws.”

The program will incur significant start-up and ongoing administrative costs, many of which have been ignored or not fully recognized, ICI claims. And while the legislature is seeking to cap administrative costs at 1% of program funds, “if costs exceed that cap, the gap will need to be closed—either by raising fees on the very workers the program is intended to benefit, or through a bailout from California taxpayers.”

ICI goes on to cite the “economic risks California may face if certain investment structures are chosen. For instance, the ‘pooled IRA with reserve fund’ under consideration would provide a ‘soft guarantee’ to reduce but not prevent losses for enrollees. This ‘soft guarantee’ creates the very real risk that a sustained negative market environment will exhaust any ‘surplus’ earnings withheld from participants. In such circumstances, the state will be forced to either fund distributions from new contributions, reduce participants’ account balances to cover investment losses, or seek a bailout from California taxpayers to cover the funding deficit created by the ‘soft guarantee,’” ICI warned.

Each of these issues, among others, raises significant questions about the viability of the program, ICI claims, and “requires further examination before Secure Choice advances.”

“Federal requirements provide important protections, which private-sector retirement savers have enjoyed for more than four decades,” ICI’s letter concludes. “However, these protections impose compliance costs, and it is unclear whether the state's analysis includes these costs, which all private-sector providers must bear. Either the state anticipates operating the program without these important consumer protections, or it has failed to consider significant compliance costs that may affect the viability of the program.”

The newest comment letter from ICI is here, and a previous version with additional analysis is here.

Fidelity Encourages Advisers to Exploit ‘State of Flux’

Advisers have been in a “constant state of flux,” according to a quarterly Fidelity survey, but they are also “making sense of the range of short- and medium-term factors in play.”

Results of the latest Fidelity Advisor Investment Pulse survey should surprise few regular readers of PLANADVISER.com.

The Pulse survey program is an ongoing research effort that captures the views of Fidelity Institutional Asset Management broker/dealer and registered investment adviser (RIA) professionals, as well as the views of their clients. Respondents are asked open-ended questions about the investing environment and outlook, and the potential impact of recent news events on portfolio risk and returns.

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Forward-looking results from the latest survey are little changed from the previous edition: “Market volatility, regulatory reforms, and political and macroeconomic shifts were top-of-mind for financial advisers across the first half of 2016,” the research finds. “These factors generated nervousness among advisers and investors, who in turn directed their attention toward portfolio management to help their clients navigate the uncertainty.”

Especially within the retirement space, investors for the most part are busy diversifying their investment approaches and market exposures. Many are turning to asset-allocation funds and multi-asset portfolios to add to diversification, while others are seeking to blend the benefits of active and passive investing philosophies.

Against this backdrop, “portfolio management” was the top area of focus cited by more than 26% of advisers surveyed, Fidelity explains, closely followed by market volatility (nearly 26%) and developments in the regulatory and political landscape (18%). These results are very similar to findings from the second quarter of the year, when 27% of respondents focused on portfolio management, 23% were concerned about market volatility, and 21% were keeping an eye on regulatory and political developments.

“Without question, volatility was a big concern for both advisers and investors in the first six months of the year,” says Scott Couto, president, Fidelity Institutional Asset Management. “Regulatory changes like the introduction of the Department of Labor (DOL)’s investment advice rule and political developments such as Brexit and the U.S. election campaign added to a degree of uncertainty to global markets.”

NEXT: Long-term planning is never easy

Looking ahead, Fidelity urges advisers to “identify the ideal mix of risk and return for their clients,” applying multiple perspectives and time horizons to their analysis. For example, through a short-term tactical lens, advisers ought to consider how “geopolitics, investor sentiment and flows are factors that may result in the market deviating from longer-term trends.”

“These may create investment opportunities and offer attractive entry and exit points,” Fidelity finds, “but advisers should not be overly dependent on a tactical time horizon when evaluating portfolios.”

Looking out between five and ten years, Fidelity urges advisers to think about the fundamentals of the business cycle: “Asset performance has historically been driven by business cycle factors that are connected to the state of the economy, including corporate earnings, credit growth, and inventories. In the U.S., there is currently a mix of mid- and late-cycle dynamics, with recession risks remaining low.”

Because of less reliable asset performance patterns, Fidelity says advisers “should consider smaller cyclical tilts, as well as continuing to educate their clients about the importance of diversification.”

Looking even further ahead, Fidelity suggests it “may be useful to apply a secular lens when, over a 10- to 30-year time frame, demographic shifts, productivity changes, and other macroeconomic trends may influence asset performance.”

“As advisers use multiple time horizons to look beyond immediate developments like the Department of Labor’s investment advice rule, Brexit and the U.S. election campaign, they may be able to develop a disciplined and differentiated approach to portfolio management,” the survey report concludes. “Advisers should set their own guardrails around the three time horizons: Some advisers update their secular views annually, their business cycle views weekly, and their tactical views on a daily basis.”

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