Open-end Funds vs. ETFs: Lessons from the COVID Stress Test

COVID-19 posed the most severe stress test for financial markets and institutions since the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007-09. By some measures, the COVID shock’s peak impact was larger than that of the GFC—both the VIX rose higher and intermediaries’ estimated capital shortfalls were bigger. As a result, the COVID experience provides a natural laboratory for testing the resilience of many parts of the post-GFC financial system.

For example, the March 2020 dysfunction in the corporate bond market highlights the extraordinary fragility of a market that accounts for nearly 60% of the debt and borrowings of the nonfinancial corporate sector. Yield spreads over equivalent Treasuries widened further than at any time since the GFC, with bond prices plunging even for instruments that have little risk of default. (See Liang for an excellent overview.)

In this post, we focus on how, because of the contractual agreement with their shareholders, an extraordinary wave of redemptions created selling pressure on corporate bond mutual funds that almost surely exacerbated the liquidity crisis in the corporate bond market. To foreshadow our conclusions, we urge policymakers to find ways to reduce the gap between the illiquidity of the assets held by corporate bond (and some other) mutual funds and the redemption-on-demand that these funds provide. To reduce systemic fragility, we also urge them—as we did several years ago—to consider encouraging conversion of mutual funds holding illiquid assets into ETFs, which suffered relatively less in the COVID crisis….

Treasury Round II: The Capital Markets Report

Earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury published the second of four planned reports designed to implement the core principles for regulating the U.S. financial system announced in President Trump’s February 2017 Executive Order. This report focuses on capital markets. We wrote about the first report—regarding depository institutions—in June (see here). Future reports are slated to address “the asset management and insurance industries, and retail and institutional investment products and vehicles” and “nonbank financial institutions, financial technology, and financial innovation.”

A central motivation for all this work is to review the extensive regulatory reforms enacted in the aftermath of the 2007-09 financial crisis. President Trump’s stated principles provide an attractive basis for evaluating the effectiveness of Dodd-Frank in making the financial system both more cost-effective and safer. Where have the reforms gone too far? Where have they not gone far enough?

Much of the capital markets report focuses on ways to reduce the regulatory burden, and many of the proposals—which address issues ranging from initial public offerings (IPOs) to securitizations to financial market utilities (FMUs)—could improve market function. However, while they would involve a large number of changes—most of which can be implemented without new legislation (see table)—none of the 100-plus recommendations seem terribly dramatic, nor are they likely to have much impact on the goal of promoting economic growth.

Our overall reaction is that Treasury’s predispositions—which were more clearly evident in the earlier report—encourage doubts. To us, the numerous proposals look lopsided in favor of providing “regulatory relief” even where systemic concerns may persist....

Reforming mutual funds: a proposal to improve financial market resilience

U.S. capital markets are the deepest and broadest in the world, fortifying the country’s financial system and making its assets both liquid and attractive. A major part of this capital market advantage is due to the role played by mutual funds, which provide retail investors with a low-cost means of diversifying risk while earning a market return on their savings.

However, a growing class of mutual funds—those that hold mostly illiquid assets—appear to be a potential source of systemic risk. In this post we explain why, and then go on to suggest a change that is simple to implement and might mitigate the problem.

The World of ETFs

The first U.S. exchange-traded fund (ETF)—the SPY based on the S&P500—began trading in 1993. Since then, the number of such funds has grown dramatically, so that by mid-2016 there were more than 1,600 ETFs on U.S. exchanges valued at roughly $2.2 trillion. This means that ETFs are now roughly one-sixth the size of open-end mutual funds. And, with this ETF growth has come a broadening in their scope and character. Today, there are ETFs that include less liquid assets such as corporate bonds and emerging market equities, and there are funds that provide inverse or leveraged exposure to the underlying assets.

Given these trends, it is no surprise that ETFs have attracted regulators’ attention (see, for example, here and here). Should they be concerned? Is this a consumer protection issue? Do ETFs contribute to systemic risk? Or, is their design stabilizing? Might financial stability even be served by the conversion of all open-end mutual funds into ETFs? ...

Commentary

Money, Banking, and Financial Markets