The last trading day of the week marked a mixed day on Wall Street but for the first time this year volatility was not a major concern, as the market had it’s fist positive week of the year. All U.S. markets were up between 2.5% and 3.8% this week. The price of oil seems to have leveled off although it closed down today 3.7% to $29.64 a barrel. Read more here.
Meanwhile, the city of Philadelphia was a big topic today on CNBC in a headline:
“The American City with a $5.7 billion dollar Pension Crisis.”
In an interview with CNBC Rob Dubow– Director of Finance for the City of Philadelphia and chairman of the city’s pension fund board talked about the major shortcomings in Philly’s pension system. The fund has less than half what it needs for the retirement funds of 64,000 current and former Philadelphia employees. The $5.7 billion dollar funding shortfall makes the Philadelphia pension system one of the worst-funded pension funds in the US.
In explaining the Philadelphia pension crisis Dubow told CNBC:
“The unfunded liability is one of the biggest financial challenges we face in Philadelphia and we have to figure out how to manage that. We have a very mature pension fund. We have more retirees than we have active members. That imbalance is a big cause of our problem. Also, we got hit in 2008/2009. The fund lost almost 20% in 2009 in the midst of the financial crisis. We are working aggressively to cut our fees. When we look at managers, we try to get the lowest fees possible. We have gotten rid of managers.”
Read more about the Philly pension crisis here.
Should you be worried about your pension? See more below.
Here are the final numbers from Friday, 2/19/16 on Wall Street
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 16,391.65 (-21.78 / -0.13 %)
NASDAQ: 4,504.43 (+16.89 / +0.38 %)
S&P 500: 1,917.78 (-0.05 / -0.00 %)
