Pension Pulse

Rian Howlett , Karen Friar and Ines Ferréof Yahoo Finance report the Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq slip, chip stocks rise as Wall Street ends volatile week lower: US stocks were little changed on Friday despite growing uncertainty over the next Fed chair, while strong bank earnings and ongoing geopolitical tensions capped a volatile week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ( ^IXIC ) fell below the flat line, while the S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) was little changed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ( ^DJI ) declined slightly, with all three major averages losing less than 1% for the week. The Russell 2000 ( ^RUT ) closed at a record high as the small-cap index extended year-to-date gains to 8%. Stocks gave up earlier gains on Friday after President Trump expressed fresh reluctance to name Kevin Hassett as the next Fed chair, fueling speculation that the central bank may not be as dovish as the market expected once Jerome Powell steps down in May. "I actually want to keep you where you...

Freschia Gonzales of Pensions and Benefits Monitor reports  CPP ‘enhancement’ leaves workers paying more for less:  Ottawa’s latest Canada Pension Plan hike will raise contributions for an $85,000 earner by nearly 80 percent over eight years, even as active management by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board trails its own benchmarks.  According to Matthew Lau in the Financial Post , someone earning $85,000 will face combined worker and employer CPP contributions of $9,292.90 in 2026, once the newer “CPP2” layer that began in 2024 is fully in place.   Lau calculates that as an annual CPP tax inc...

Mark Harris, Ihab Khalil, Nolan Harte, Johannes Glugla, Christy Carter, and Andrew Claerhout of BCG wrote an insightful comment on how private equity’s advantage is shifting, not shrinking: The past three years of public-market strength have made private equity an easy target. Returns from a small group of mega-cap stocks have driven public indexes sharply higher, giving investors both stronger short-term performance and full liquidity. That combination has widened the gap with private markets and renewed debate about PE’s value proposition. Long-term investors might wonder why they should stay committed to an asset class that has lagged public markets and offers less flexibility in reallocating capital. The question is not without merit. Measured on a money-weighted basis, PE has only modestly outperformed broad public benchmarks over the past five and ten years. PE marks also tend to move more slowly than public valuations, especially on the downside. That lag can make t...

James Bradshaw of the Globe and Mail reports  Dutch tax court rules Ontario pension plan wrongly claimed $346-million in tax refunds: A Dutch tax court ruled this week that Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan wrongly claimed nearly €214-million ($346-million) of dividend tax refunds through a trading strategy designed to take advantage of the pension fund’s favourable tax status in the Netherlands. The court upheld the opinion of a tax inspector who found that in 445 transactions between 2013 and 2018, HOOPP was not the true beneficial owner of the Dutch shares that paid the dividends and so could not reclaim tax withheld against them, in a ruling published on Wednesday. The decision is a setback for HOOPP in a long-running tax dispute, launched in 2019, which also led a Dutch prosecutor to initiate a separate criminal investigation in October. The tax court’s decision would require HOOPP to repay the refunded tax as well as about €40-million ($65-million) in interest c...