Industry News

On October 7, 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that total holdings and investments for the 100 largest state and local government retirement systems increased 7.6% from the previous quarter to $4.09 trillion at ​the end of the second quarter of 2020.

During the second quarter of 2020, corporate equity (both foreign and domestic) increased 14.3% from $1.39 trillion to $1.58 trillion, corporate bonds (both foreign and domestic) increased 7.0% from $434.8 to $465.4 billion, private equity decreased 11.4% from $501.1 billion to $444.0 billion, federal government securities decreased 10.0% from $466.7 billion to $420.0 billion, indirectly held assets increased 25.7% from $572.6 billion to $719.8 billion, cash and short-term investments decreased 4.8% from $138.8 billion to $132.2 billion, and other investments (such as real estate) increased 8.3% from $303.7 billion to $329.1 billion. 

The results are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Quarterly Survey of Public Pensions which surveys the revenues, expenditures, and composition of assets for the 100 largest U.S. public employee retirement systems.  These systems comprise 88% of the total cash and security holdings reported for public plans in the 2012 Census of Governments.  The report also provides a table showing the quarterly distribution of cash and security holdings for the second quarter of 2020.   

The summary is available here.