Press

“Ivy League endowments continued their strong performance in fiscal 2018 (ended June 30), with all but one registering double-digit returns and all beating a 60–40 U.S. stocks-and-bonds portfolio, the research and analytics firm Markov Processes International reported last week. However, for the first time in the 20 years of available Ivy endowment returns data, the 60–40 portfolio outpaced all Ivies in terms of 10-year performance. For 15- and 20-year performance, the Ivies still maintained an edge on the benchmark.” Read the full article here.

“There’s a tug of war going on in endowments, as well as in asset management,” said Jeff Schwartz, president of MPI. “A lot of people are hoping that there is no point in investing in these complex alternatives. Then you have devotees of the Yale model who want to show there is a payoff for putting so much of the portfolio into private equity, VC, and all the things we think of as sophisticated and expensive. This report shows that the reality is much more complex than either narrative.” Read the full article here.

“I think it’s an extension of what we have done before. We launched our hedge fund benchmarks with daily tracker indices to provide a better measure of hedge fund performance while also providing insight on what the drivers of returns are,” said Rohtas Handa, EVP and Head of Institutional Solutions at MPI. “While traditional hedge fund indices give a measure of overall performance, there isn’t a focus on what is driving constituent returns. So, we are excited to deliver these new insights.” Read the full article here.

“Target volatility versions of the MPI Eurekahedge 50 Tracker Index are now available with 6% or 8% volatility, while the MPI Best 20 Tracker Index, which tracks the MPI Barclay Elite Systematic Traders Index, comes in 8% and 10% volatility versions. “You can scale up the volatility and scale up the risk level of the proxy index to get an ‘apples-to-apples’ comparison,” said Rohtas Handa, head of institutional solutions at MPI.” Read the full article here.

“The Duke Endowment’s 2018 returns also beat the 8.4 percent gains that a typical 60-40 portfolio of S&P 500 stocks and aggregate bond index investment grade bonds would have returned in fiscal year 2018, according to Markov Processes International. The endowment’s growth also surpassed the S&P 500’s 10.8 percent growth over the same period.” Read the full article here.

“This year’s gains were driven by alternative investment strategies. Ivy League asset managers have been ramping up allocations to alternative asset classes in recent years in hopes of outperforming broad market indexes. “What we definitely see is that the funds that were highly exposed to private equity and venture capital did very well,” said Jeff Schwartz, president at MPI.” Read the full article here.

“According to investment research analysts Markov Processes International, the strong performance has been driven in large part by investments in private equity and venture capital, which have returned 18.7% and 18.3%, respectively, in fiscal 2018, compared to a 14.4% return for the S&P 500…. Markov estimated that private equity and venture capital contributed 8.3% and 3.3% of Yale’s 12.3% return for 2018, with other asset classes contributing only 0.8% of its annual return. The firm also estimated that private equity and venture capital contributed 5.2% and 3.2%, respectively, of Dartmouth’s 12.2% return; and 3.6% and 3.3%, respectively, of Harvard’s 10% return.” Read the full article here.

“Harvard’s returns topped the 8.4 percent gain that a typical 60-40 portfolio of Standard & Poor’s 500-stock and aggregate bond index equities would have delivered over the same period, said Jeff Schwartz, president of Markov Processes International, a quantitative research and technology firm. But the endowment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, posted a 13.5 percent gain, bringing it to $16.4 billion; Notre Dame’s increased 12.2 percent, to $13.1 billion; and the University of Pennsylvania’s rose 12.9 percent, to $13.8 billion.” Read the full article here. (subscription required)

“Despite having the second-smallest endowment in the Ivy League next to Brown University, Dartmouth has had among the top-performing investment portfolios of any of the elite universities in recent years. According to investment research firm Markov Processes International, Dartmouth has been among the top-four performing Ivy League endowments five out of the previous six years.” Read full article here.

“This year, it’s been like watching popcorn. One after another things popped,” Bridgewater co-CIO Bob Prince tells Risk.net’s Rob Mannix in this article, which cites MPI research. “The difference though is we’ve not had a contagion effect. Each event is an isolated event. Then it goes away…. That’s because, though the central banks are withdrawing liquidity, the financial system is in a very different situation from what’s typical at this stage of the cycle. Typically at this stage of the cycle the financial system is overleveraged because it’s been financing the economic expansion.” Read the full article here. (subscription required)