Investment Fund Clones Part I: University Endowments [View article]
Several years ago, I also took note of the Endowments and constructed this type of clone to track or benchmark a synthetic performance for El-Erian, Swensen, et al. in the Great Bear Market.
With various 2006, 2007, 2008 allocations, the returns were all -37.5% > -46% (10/9/07-5/5/09.)
In the way they report performance, donations (assets in) skew "return," and obviously these institutions are using highly compensated money managers whose alpha should compound - maybe the invested assets were only down -30% or so?
My own managed model for clients is +50% for the same period ... so YES, you CAN beat Harvard with a portfolio of ETFs.
Investment Fund Clones Part I: University Endowments [View article]
With various 2006, 2007, 2008 allocations, the returns were all -37.5% > -46% (10/9/07-5/5/09.)
In the way they report performance, donations (assets in) skew "return," and obviously these institutions are using highly compensated money managers whose alpha should compound - maybe the invested assets were only down -30% or so?
My own managed model for clients is +50% for the same period ... so YES, you CAN beat Harvard with a portfolio of ETFs.