2 min readWhen Republican leaders unveiled their long-awaited tax-reform proposal late last month, politicians and pundits jumped on the nine-page document to determine potential winners and losers. The “long-on-promises, short-on-details” nature of the so-called “Trump tax plan” raised more questions than it answered, rendering many predictions little more than conjectures and educated guesses. Even so, there were…
5 min readAbstract The Republican bill represents a starting point for tax and budget negotiations. While details are lacking, the current plan offers some interesting angles for market participants to think about their liquidity investment strategies. We highlighted parts of the bill relevant to corporate cash investors and their potential impact on issuers and investors in the…
1 min readBanks have traditionally been a little slow to follow interest rate hikes by the Fed with comparable rate increases on their own deposit accounts. But this time around they seem to be moving more slowly than ever. Our August research report―Higher Deposit Rates-Where Art Thou?―looks back at the past two Fed tightening cycles and compares…
3 min readAbstract The return of yield opportunities presents institutional cash investors with fresh challenges. Higher rates have driven up the cost of staying with ultra conservative instruments. Money market fund reforms have left corporate cash managers with few clear choices to add yield. And historically popular cash vehicles that have undergone significant changes demand a fresh…
1 min readIt may be time for a refresher course on the pros and cons of bank deposits as the primary repository of corporate cash. In the wake of last fall’s transition to floating net asset values (NAVs) at institutional prime money market funds, treasurers were already going through a once-in-a-generation rethink of liquidity and risk. Now,…
3 min readAbstract Treasury organizations maintain deposit relationships despite uninsured credit risk and lost yield opportunity. Earnings credit rates may become less competitive than market-based rates. Including separate accounts in the mix helps address both credit and yield objectives in institutional liquidity management. Introduction The search for liquidity management solutions reached a new level of significance when…
5 min readPerhaps no word better describes the start of 2017 than “transition.” The year began with the White House’s transition from the Obama to the Trump administration, continued with the rise of European populism, and recently culminated in the official beginning of Britain’s transition out of the European Union. Somewhat less noticeably, change is also taking…
4 min readWhen British citizens voted to leave the European Union last June, markets reacted strongly: the pound dropped 11%, the FTSE 100 (an index of British stocks) fell 9%, and equity markets from the United States to Japan sold off as well. Although much of the value lost in these markets was recovered quickly, the Brexit…
5 min readExecutive Summary Important regulatory changes to institutional prime money market funds are forcing new ideas and new interest in prime fund alternatives. With the SEC Form PF aggregate data, we reconstructed a profile of unregistered private liquidity funds promising investors stable $1.00 NAVs without liquidity gates. We discuss the drawbacks with private funds as being…
1 min readAre you homesick for the good old days of dollar-in, dollar-out prime money market funds? It’s only been a few months since the SEC imposed floating net asset values (NAVs) on institutional prime funds, along with optional redemption fees and liquidity gates. Since then, treasurers have been scurrying for alternatives offering the same liquidity and…