The funded status of a typical closed and frozen corporate defined benefit pension fund decreased 4.2 percentage points in January to 89.3%, according to a report from Wilshire Associates.
The decline was almost entirely due to a rise in liabilities, though assets for the month were down as well. Liabilities increased by 4% due to a 25-basis-point drop in the discount rate, while assets were down 0.6% mainly due to the decrease in global equity markets.
The typical pension fund, as studied by Wilshire, has an asset allocation of 33% domestic equity, 26% long-duration fixed income, 22% international equity, 17% core fixed income and 2% real estate. Wilshire uses data of S&P 500 company pension funds derived from corporate filings to create the model plan.
