Postura SEC laxa ante fondos del mercado monetario

Genevieve Signoret & Patrick Signoret

Resumen: La semana pasada, la Comisión de Valores y Bolsa (SEC) canceló unos cambios regulatorios para los fondos del mercado monetario bajo intensa presión de la industria. Los editores de Bloomberg advierten que los fondos del mercado monetario (money market funds) continúan siendo un importante riesgo para el sistema financiero. Pero hay un Plan B, reporta NYT: que otros reguladores impongan los cambios regulatorios. Investopedia define los fondos del mercado monetario y explica el término breaking the buck y cómo puede ocurrir. El grupo de presión Preserve Money Market Funds y James Angel en Washington Times argumentan en contra de las reformas propuestas, diciendo que ya se han llevado a cabo las reformas necesarias y que más regulación hará desaparecer estos fondos.

Los editores de Bloomberg explican por qué los fondos del mercado monetario son un riesgo sistémico y argumentan que las propuestas de mejoras regulatorias eran necesarias:

A quick reminder of the dangers: In September 2008, the Reserve Primary Fund held $785 million in Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. debt. When Lehman failed, the fund suffered losses.

If money-market funds operated like normal mutual funds, the loss would have been reflected in the share price. Investors could consider the stock price relative to other funds or even other investments. But money-market funds promise that share prices will never deviate from $1, ensuring that investors get a dollar back for every dollar invested.

Once Lehman collapsed, Reserve Primary’s assets were worth less than $1 a share, an event known as breaking the buck. Investors fled, hoping to get their money out, fearing there wouldn’t be enough assets in the fund to cover their withdrawals.

The panic infected much of the rest of the industry, which provides much of the short-term credit corporations use to meet payrolls and finance inventories. In a matter of days, investors yanked $300 billion from the funds, freezing U.S. credit markets. The run only ended when the Fed and Treasury Department stepped in with a $1 trillion guarantee, which they have been barred from doing again by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.

Schapiro’s solution was to require that money-fund share prices reflect the market value of their underlying assets. This would lower the hair-trigger incentive investors have to grab their money at the first sign of distress. Recall that the Reserve Primary run was kicked off because the losses on the Lehman debt amounted to just 3 cents a share.

The other ideas Schapiro proposed would have limited how much investors could withdraw on the spot and required funds to hold capital as a cushion against losses, much like banks do now.

These were reasonable proposals to enhance the funds’ soundness. Safer funds might be more attractive to investors, not less, as the industry contends.

Pero hay un Plan B, reporta NYT: que otros reguladores impongan los cambios regulatorios.

Money market funds, which hold $2.6 trillion and make short-term loans to governments and banks, are usually stable. But they are vulnerable to runs. When one large fund got into trouble in 2008, mass withdrawals occurred at others. This deprived the financial system of cash at a critical time, prompting the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department to bail out the money funds.

[…]  The most obvious next step would be for a council of top regulators, the so-called Financial Stability Oversight Council, to vote on designating money market funds as systemically important, which would pave the way for stricter regulations.

[…]  Alternatively, the council has the power to designate specific money funds or fund managers as systemically important. That would shift regulation of those funds to the Federal Reserve.

Any decision could take three to four months, and once approved, a fund manager could ask for a judicial review. This timing could stretch the process past the November elections, which may put new regulators into power.

Investopedia define los fondos del mercado monetario y explica el término breaking the buck (“perder el dólar”) y cómo puede ocurrir:

Money market funds are a form of mutual fund, which means they attempt to keep a net asset value (NAV) of $1 per share. $1,000 is equal to 1,000 shares, and vice versa. These funds are invested to produce a return for investors, but money market funds are required by law to invest in low-risk debts (no more than 13 months in duration), such as government bonds, which means they typically return less than equities.

What many people fail to understand about money market funds, however, is that low risk isn’t the same as risk-free.

Because these funds are still an investment, it is possible for shares to lose value and dip below $1 per share. In this case, the fund is said to have broken the buck, a crucial benchmark in the financial sector.

While this is uncommon, it can and does happen, causing investors to lose money and fund managers lose their reputations.

El grupo de presión Preserve Money Market Funds y James Angel en Washington Times argumentan en contra de las reformas propuestas, diciendo que ya se han llevado a cabo las reformas necesarias y que más regulación hará desaparecer estos fondos. James Angel:

Regulators also need to distinguish between a destabilizing run and an orderly walk. In a run, a wave of redemptions could force a money-market fund to sell assets into a disorderly market, further destabilizing the markets. For this reason, the Securities and Exchange Commission passed reforms in 2010 that require money-market funds to have 10 percent of their assets mature daily and 30 percent within a week. This drastically reduces the chance that there will be a forced liquidation of assets. When the next crisis hits the financial markets, money-market fund investors will have the option to walk safely to their perceived havens without destabilizing the markets. Indeed, such orderly walking has been evident as concerns over the European debt crisis have mounted.

[…] The proposed reforms will not reduce systemic risk. If the industry is eliminated or vastly shrunk, some of the assets will flow into banks, making too-big-to-fail institutions larger and thus systemically riskier. Large investors such as corporate cash managers, not covered by the limited Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. insurance, will run from those banks even faster than they would from money-market funds. Other assets will flow into riskier alternatives or even offshore, increasing risks to consumers and the financial system.

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