May was a good month for pension funding ratios, although thedetails vary depending on the source.

According to Wilshire Consulting, for example, the aggregatefunded ratio for U.S. corporatepension plans increased nearly one percentage point, to 84.9percent. The increase of 0.9 percent was due to a larger decreasein liabilities than the decrease in asset values.

The picture from the BNY Mellon Investment Strategy andSolutions Group (ISSG) was even rosier, with the group’s estimateof the increase in funded levels at 1.5 percent to 91.6 percent.However, ISSG said that public plans, foundations, and endowmentsmissed their targets for the month, with flat markets failing toincrease the value of their assets.

Wilshire found that liability values fell by 1.8 percent, whileasset values fell by only 0.8 percent. Asset classes outside ofU.S. equities were responsible for the move, bringing negativereturns, while falling liabilities owed that status to an increasein corporate bond yields.

The BNY Mellon Institutional Scorecard found that a fourthstraight month of rising discount rates helped to reduceliabilities for corporate plans by 1.9 percent; the Aa corporatediscount rate gained 15 basis points to 4.20 percent. Assets fellby just 0.2 percent.

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According to ISSG, the corporate funded status is at its highestlevel since June of 2014, when it was 92.0 percent. It is also 4.3percentage points higher than it was at the beginning of theyear.

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However, the month wasn’t so fortuitous for public definedbenefit plans, which missed their return target by 0.7 percent asassets declined 0.1 percent. The ISSG report said that year overyear, public plans are 3.5 percent below their annual returntarget.

In addition, ISSG said that the real return in May forendowments and foundations was -0.6 percent as assets were flat. Itadded that, year over year, endowments and foundations are behindtheir inflation plus spending target by 2.2 percent.