Updated COVID-19 Survey: Most Managers’ Offices Closed, With Many Not Reopening Until 2021

Overall, managers were much less optimistic about the resumption of business as usual in September compared to our first survey in June.

Breaking Bad: Better Call Hedge Funds?

In today’s uncertain environment, Callan examined how hedge funds are positioned to potentially help investors. We see four key opportunities…

The Stock Market Is Not the Economy

The word “unprecedented” to describe the current environment may seem overused, but the speed and depth of the economic disruption was indeed unprecedented.

Fine-Tuning Implementation of the CARES Act

The IRS has issued two notices and a FAQ to clarify how defined contribution (DC) plan sponsors should implement the provisions of the act, touching on required notices, tax reporting, and recordkeeping

Main Street vs. Wall Street

While Wall Street was in celebration mode, much of Main Street continued to suffer. Against the backdrop of stellar asset price performance, rising cases of the virus in the U.S. tempered optimism going into quarter-end

Pandemic Reshapes the Outlook for Farmland Investments

View Newsletter There may never be another global event akin to the COVID-19 pandemic in our lifetimes that more clearly tests the investment thesis for farmland as a component of a diversified institutional investment portfolio. Investors make strategic allocations to farmland for its diversification potential, low correlation to more traditional asset classes, and inflation-hedging properties. […]

How the Fed’s COVID-19 Programs Affected Markets and Investors

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, financial markets have experienced levels of disruption not seen since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. After bid-ask spreads widened dramatically in March across a broad array of fixed income sectors—including off-the-run U.S. Treasuries!—a series of Federal Reserve programs has restored investor confidence and liquidity, and […]

How Investment Managers Are Handling the Pandemic’s Impact

View Survey This month Callan conducted a survey aimed at gauging how investment managers have been coping with the impact of COVID-19 and the subsequent quarantine on their operations, and to gather insights about their plans. As our industry navigates the uncertainty, devastation, and confusion surrounding the pandemic, we found that managers across the globe […]

Our DC Index Had a Noteworthy First Quarter

The Callan DC Index™ tracks roughly 100 defined contribution (DC) plans with about $250 billion in total assets. The Index serves as a proxy for the DC universe and provides plan-related statistics such as asset class prevalence, average allocation figures, and the average number of plan investment options. With our comprehensive perspective on the DC […]

What Just Happened?

The full return of the economy depends on the confidence that we are safe to resume jobs, travel, consumption, and daily interaction. Until then, the global economy will be hampered in ways we can only partly anticipate; the unmeasurable risk of the global health crisis will dominate for some time