ICI's McNamee on Fact Checking
The Investment Company Institute published a recent "Viewpoint," written by Mike McNamee entitled, "Fact Checking the Media on Money Market Funds." It says, "The media has heavily covered the unanimous vote by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to proceed with another round of regulatory changes for money market funds. In digesting this coverage, readers and journalists alike should make sure they have solid facts about money market funds. They also should be on guard for errors and omissions that tend to recur in stories and commentary on this issue. A recent Q&A item from the Associated Press illustrates one such omission. The Q&A states, '[Money market] funds have been the subject of high drama since the 2008 financial crisis. At issue have been years-long efforts by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Wall Street's cop, to reform the rules under which these funds operate in order to avoid investor panics of the sort that occurred a few years ago. Those efforts have been dogged by opposition from the mutual fund industry.' Unfortunately, the story fails to mention that in January 2010 the SEC completed a comprehensive post-crisis overhaul of the rules governing money market funds, imposing tough new requirements around credit quality, maturity, disclosure, and liquidity. Far from putting up "dogged" opposition, the industry embraced these measures and worked cooperatively with regulators to accomplish them."
