Pension Curve Insider: LDI Solutions September Monthly Recap

Glossary

IRS Yield Curve: Plan sponsors of qualified defined benefit pension plans use this yield curve to determine funding requirements per IRS regulations. These funding requirements are disclosed on form 5500 annually. Yields on AAA, AA, and A corporate securities determine the yield curve for discounting purposes. The yield curve is not a marked-to-market curve representing any single date, but rather an average yield over the course of the entire month. For more information on the IRS methodology, please see treasury.gov/resource-center and irs.gov/Retirement-Plans.

Accounting Yield Curve: US GAAP requires pension plan sponsors to disclose pension obligations using “fixedincome debt securities that receive one of the two highest ratings given by a recognized ratings agency”. As a proxy for bonds useable for accounting purposes, we use the constituents of BBgBarc AA credit universe to develop the accounting yield curve shown. Please see fasb.org for more information.

Top Yielding Curve: Since the US GAAP rules allow the use of a fairly broad range of securities for accounting purposes, some plan sponsors use an optimized yield curve approach to value their pension liabilities on the disclosure dates. Bonds trading at higher yields than other bonds of similar maturity tend to be used for this purpose. To quantify the effectiveness of this approach, T. Rowe Price developed a yield curve using the highest yielding bonds designed to meet SEC requirements at each node.

Annual Tracking Error Relative to Liability: Calculated as the standard deviation of return differences between a fixed income index and a set of cash flows discounted using the accounting yield curve. The liability return has two components: an interest cost component analogous to roll return on a bond, and yield change component analogous to price return on a bond. The table shows annualized ex-post tracking error.

Average Monthly Return Difference: Similar to the tracking error metric, this metric demonstrates how closely a fixed income benchmark tracks a set of liability returns. We calculate this measure by simply averaging the difference in returns over the period shown.

Sample Plan Liability: Pension plan sponsors must account for the cost of their retirement plan on their financial statements. The amount of this liability can fluctuate over time based on several factors, including benefits earned, benefits paid out, mortality experience, and most significantly, interest rates. The Sample Plan is intended to be a representative defined benefit pension plan and does not reflect the cash flows from any specific plan.

T. Rowe Price Custom Benchmark: An index of fixed income securities created using T. Rowe Price proprietary methodology that attempts to replicate interest rate exposures embedded in a pension plan’s liability structure. To learn more, please visit troweprice.com

Important Information

This material is directed at institutional investors or advisors/consultants to institutional investors only and is not intended for distribution to retail investors. It has been prepared by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. for informational purposes and is not intended to be investment advice or a recommendation to take any particular investment action. This material should not be redistributed, in whole or in part, without prior consent from T. Rowe Price. The views and information contained herein are as of 30 August 2022 and are subject to change without notice. All figures presented in USD.

The illustrations presented are hypothetical and used to demonstrate capabilities. Certain assumptions have been made for modelling purposes and with the benefit of hindsight and are unlikely to be realized. The specific issuers and bond issues mentioned in this document had significant impact on liability curves calculated using Bloomberg index universes. The modelling used for plan and benchmark development has certain inherent limitations. Benchmark construction may not reflect all material economic and market factors that could have impacted implementation or weighting decisions if the modelled plan actually existed during the time period presented. Actual T. Rowe Price Custom Benchmark characteristics, including (among other things) yield, annualized return, liability-relative tracking error and average monthly returns difference relative to plan liability may differ substantially from the hypothetical scenario presented.

© 2022 T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. T. ROWE PRICE, INVEST WITH CONFIDENCE, and the Bighorn Sheep design are, collectively and/or apart, trademarks of T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.