A new Sonecon study released by API shows oil and natural gas holdings are key to the performance of New Mexico’s public pension funds. State pension fund investments in oil and natural gas companies are providing strong returns for teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public pension retirees in states across the country.
Study results were based on New Mexico’s largest public pension funds: Public Employees Retirement Association of New Mexico (PERA) and the State of New Mexico Educational Retirement Board.
Returns on oil and natural gas assets in these funds averaged 41 cents for each dollar invested compared to just 2 cents for other assets in these funds from 2005 to 2009. During good economic times – or challenging ones – oil and natural gas investments far outperformed other public pension holdings in the state. While oil and natural gas stocks made up an average of 4.5 percent of holdings in New Mexico’s public pension funds, they accounted for an average of 14.7 percent of the returns in these funds, according to the Sonecon study. Click Here to Download New Mexico Report – Pdf
A healthy domestic oil and natural gas industry is good news for jobs and government revenue, and it also provides stability to the nest eggs that millions of Americans are counting on for a secure retirement. Millions of Americans with a 401k, mutual fund, or pension also rely on the income and capital growth these companies provide for their retirement. And all Americans benefit from the job creation and economic growth supported by the more than $2 trillion invested in U.S. capital projects over the past decade, including more than $58 billion in low and zero emitting technologies.
The full Sonecon report examines the top two public pension funds in 17 states, which collectively represent and cover more than a trillion dollars in assets and cover nearly half (48.1 percent) of all workers in the United States who participate in state and local government pension plans. States analyzed in the report are: California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and West Virginia. Click here to see the study results from all 17 states. Click Here to Download the Full Report – Pdf