money market funds

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This is the fourth in my series of posts analyzing the SEC’s recent proposal to require money market funds with floating share prices (“institutional money funds”) to implement “swing pricing” for pricing periods in which the fund has net redemptions. This post continues the example from the previous post to illustrate how the proposal would address net redemptions exceeding the market impact threshold.

This is the third in my series of posts analyzing the SEC’s recent proposal to require money market funds with floating share prices (“institutional money funds”) to implement “swing pricing” for pricing periods in which the fund has net redemptions. This post illustrates how the proposal would operate when market impact factors are not required. Readers should refer to the first post for an explanation of the proposed swing pricing process and the second post for an explanation of how a swing price should be calculated.

This is my second attempt at the second in my series of posts analyzing the SEC’s recent proposal to require money market funds with floating share prices (“institutional money funds”) to implement “swing pricing” for pricing periods in which the fund has net redemptions. I removed some earlier posts because I am less sure how to interpret the proposed definition of a “swing factor.” This post explores the disparity between the proposed definition of a “swing factor” and the discussion of swing pricing in the proposing release.

On December 15, 2021, the SEC proposed amendments to the regulation (Rule 2a-7) governing money market funds.

The proposed amendments are intended to reduce run risk, mitigate the liquidity externalities transacting investors impose on non-transacting investors, and enhance the resilience of money market funds.”

The proposing release has not yet been published in the Federal Register, so we do not know when the sixty-day comment period will begin.

The most significant proposals would (1) eliminate the power of a money market fund’s board of directors or trustees (its “Board”) to temporarily suspend, or impose liquidity fees on, redemptions and (2) require money market funds with fluctuating net asset values per share (known as “institutional money funds”) to implement “swing pricing.” This post explains this swing pricing proposal.

This post is the second installment of our discussion of the compliance requirements of new Rule 18f-4.

The comments on proposed Rule 18f-4 revealed a significant lacuna in the rule resulting from two unrelated changes to current regulations. First, the SEC will rescind Investment Company Act Release No. 10666 (“Release 10666”) as of August 19, 2022, the same day funds must comply with Rule 18f-4. Second, money market funds are excluded from the exemptions for derivatives transactions provided by Rule 18f-4. This post will explain why this was a problem and how the final rule addresses it.

This post continues our consideration of a carveout from the proposed Value at Risk (“VaR”) limitations of Rule 18f-4 for unfunded commitment agreements “because they do not present an opportunity for the fund to realize gains or losses between the date of the fund’s commitment and its subsequent investment ….” Our last post dealt with commitments to invest in a company’s equity. But the definition of “unfunded commitment agreement” would also include a contract “to make a loan to a company.” Commenters on the original Rule 18f-4 proposal contrasted these loan commitments with:

firm and standby commitment agreements, under which a fund commits itself to purchase a security with a stated price and fixed yield without condition or upon the counterparty’s demand.”

We do not believe the contrast is as stark as these commenters suggest. If our view is correct, we will need to search for additional factors to distinguish these loan commitments from commitment agreements that should be treated as derivatives transactions.

Having completed our detour into regulations and interpretations other than re-proposed Rule 18f-4, this post returns to considering possible justifications for carving out “unfunded commitment agreements” from the proposed Value at Risk limitations of Rule 18f-4. We have previously explained why the first two justification identified in the proposing release are ill-founded, which leaves only the following argument for a carveout:

Commenters also asserted that unfunded commitment agreements do not give rise to the risks that Release 10666 identified and do not have a leveraging effect on the fund’s portfolio because they do not present an opportunity for the fund to realize gains or losses between the date of the fund’s commitment and its subsequent investment when the other party to the agreement calls the commitment.”

We believe this is true of some, but not all, commitments. To explain why, we begin with the most important element of the proposed definition of “unfunded commitment agreement:” that it is a commitment to the company receiving the loan or other investment.

Not content with Steve’s detour into the relationship between Rule 2a-7 and re-proposed Rule 18f-4, we would also like to point out a set of rules under which the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) have wrestled with the distinctions between “swaps, security-based swaps and security-based swap agreements” and non-derivative transactions. Release No. 33-9938 (the “Release”) not only adopted regulations distinguishing swaps from other types of derivatives instruments (such as securities forwards) and securities, but also included interpretive guidance for distinguishing swaps from consumer and commercial agreements, contracts, and transactions. Several of the commercial transactions discussed in this Release correspond to the type of loan commitments the SEC proposes to include in the definition of “unfunded commitment agreement” in Rule 18f‑4. We suggest that some factors used to distinguish one type of derivative instrument (a swap) from commercial lending transactions may also help distinguish these transactions from derivatives instruments more generally.

This post continues my consideration of why certain “unfunded commitment agreements” should be carved out of the valuation at risk limitations of re-proposed Rule 18f-4. My previous post explained why two of the justifications offered for this carve out do not bear scrutiny. My current view is that the scope of the carve out depends on the third proposed justification: that some commitments may not have “leveraging effects.” This requires an understanding of the leveraging effects regulated by Section 18 of the Investment Company Act.

I will use the example of money market funds to explore “leveraging effects” because (a) it allows me to answer a question raised in the proposing release and (b) it illustrates another means of limiting leverage.