The Friday Fund Track column in the Wall Street Journal will mostly be of interest to a different, non-'40 Act type of fundster. Eleanor Laise reports on the problems faced by the Chrysler Stable Value Fund within Chrysler's "Salaried Employees' Income Deferral Plan."

Stable value funds come in collective fund (and not mutual fund) format and are used in qualified plans (and not for retail investors), where they often are seen as a quasi-substitute for money market funds as a capital preservation option. In the case of this particular stable value fund, though, investors received only $0.89 on the dollar when Chrysler liquidated it this year. A Chrysler spokesman blamed market volatility and high withdrawals.

This isn't the first time stable value woes have stepped into the limelight so far in 2009. In January, the WSJ previously reported on the December losses in the Lehman Brothers retirement plan's stable value fund, and State Street unveiled its own stable value write down that same month (see MFWire, 1/9/2009 and 1/20/2009). And just last week Laise herself penned a column worrying about some of stable value funds' potential vulnerabilities (see our sister publication, The 401kWire, 3/26/2009). 

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