“It’s not just where the markets are, it’s the fees you collect,” said Alan Johnson, managing director of Johnson Associates, in a phone interview. “We have these systemic changes within the market. We’ve moved from active to passive; we’ve moved to ETFs.”
Mr. Johnson added that the decline is only “moderately worse” than estimates made earlier in the year because of the systemic changes. “We thought it would be down this year, anyway, so this is much better than anyone thought it would be,” he said.
“There’s going to be a fair amount of job insecurity,” Mr. Johnson said. “Firms found that they don’t need as many people as they thought they did. And adding the tragedies and stresses of the pandemic, it’s going to be a very difficult year-end.”
Pensions & Investments / August 10, 2020