contrarian@coalmine

Performance for Harvard, Yale Endowments in 2008

Rememberctr...you state "The donation numbers are public and they only account for <10% of the endowment growth." If donations are counted as actual portfolio return on a year to year basis, then that's one-hell-of-a competitive edge for these endowments. Give me a 5-10% head start on the S&P 500 every year...and I'd be a legendary portfolio manager.

This is the year of the mark to market confessional for all money managers...there's no escaping. I'm too lazy to ascertain what equity positions Yale and Harvard hold long term [don't tell me that they have 100% yearly turnover], but I would bet AIG,LEH,GE,WM,MS,PFE,C... etc. are among them...not to mention their diversification into brutalized emerging markets.

I still have no hesitation questioning the veracity of the above claim that Harvard is beating the market by almost 20% this year, and is actually showing a positive return...minus in flows of cash donations.

Boasting exceptional returns when your internal audits are not made public is disingenuous at best. It's like saying "we use the same measuring stick when evaluating legacies as we do when accepting other students". How else do you explain George Bush's Yale (BA) and Harvard degrees (MBA).