Univ. stands by investment strategy
By Vivian Yee
Staff Reporter
The Yale Daily News
Published Monday, March 22, 2010
Despite the major losses Yale’s endowment suffered last year, Chief Investment Officer David Swensen is sticking to the famously contrarian investment strategy that may have deepened those losses — and that may continue to delay the endowment’s recovery, at least in the near future.
At the end of the last fiscal year, which ended June 30, the Yale Investments Office increased the percentage of the endowment it invests in diversified assets, according to the University’s annual endowment report,...
#1 By Brainiac Poker 5:17a.m. on March 22, 2010
"investment strategy"
Sounds like brainiac gambling to me.
Just because it's called "investment strategy" doesn't mean it ain't poker.
PK
#2 By FailBoat 1:31a.m. on March 23, 2010
Poker is a positive-expectancy game for a smart player.
#3 By Here's a more cynical explanation for the strategy 9:43a.m. on March 23, 2010
Here's The Real Reason The Head Of Yale's Endowment Is Bullish On PE
Courtney Comstock Mar. 22, 2010,
Yale Money
PE Hub (via Paul Kedrosky) has an interesting take on why the head of Yale's endowment is still bullish on PE after losing tons of money investing in the asset class.
Even though Yale's endowment was mauled in 2008, largely because of their manager's, David Swenson's, investments in private equity, recent news shows that he has upped Yale's exposure to PE from 20% to 26%.
This is because, says PEHub, Swenson, wants to create wiggle-room — and an aura of calm — when the PE exposure inevitably grows.
Let's take a look at Yale's Annual Endowment report:
Under the terms of certain limited partnership and limited liability company agreements for private equity and real estate investments, the University is obligated to remit additional funding periodically as capital calls are exercised. At June 30, 2009, the University had uncalled commitments of approximately $7.6 billion.
Yale’s entire endowment fund was worth $16.3 billion as of June 30. So Yale's investment in PE and real estate makes up almost half of their whole endowment.
The University has various sources of internal liquidity at its disposal, including cash, cash equivalents and marketable debt and equity securities. If called upon at June 30, 2009, management estimates that it could have liquidated approximately $3.6 billion (unaudited) to meet short-term needs.
This means Yale committed a certain amount of money to PE funds that it hasn't yet delivered to them (this is normal - similar among all investors in PE funds). The PE fund can "call" this money and then Yale is expected to make good on its promise. But as of June 30, 2009, Yale wouldn't have been able to pay out even half of its investment in PE.
So, PEHub suggests, Yale’s hope here is that private equity distributions will outpace new capital calls. (That they'll make money off their investments before they have to deliver the funds.) Even more damaging, PEHub suggests:
The school felt its best hedge is to increase its target allocation, in order to create wiggle-room — and an aura of calm — when the PE exposure inevitably grows.
This might be something cash-strapped Yale can't fix just by slashing capital spending by 60%.
#4 By Auntie PK 10:55a.m. on March 23, 2010
Ha! Beat me to it.
Sad that a supposedly learned scholar (and teacher!) cannot discern between "gambling" and "investing." But then, neither can half of Yalies.
A few more Probability & Statistics courses mighta helped, eh?
Ah, whither the liberal arts? (For you moderns, the seven liberal arts once included arithmetic and geometry...)
#5 By Shysters 10:22a.m. on March 24, 2010
Auntie PK:
Investing (in the world of gentlemen, which was in its death throws as I was being raised in the 1950's) used to mean putting your money at risk in order to show support for a person or company you believed in.
Now it means, trying to make a buck off anybody or any firm you think you can clean up on.
NOBLE EXCEPTIONS: Anti-Apartheid investing and Green investing.
PK
PS Regarding ending a sentence with a preposition (twice above), Winston Churchill said, "That is nonsense up with which I will not put."
#6 By Auntie PK 5:08p.m. on March 24, 2010
"Throes" not "thows."
So, to be consistent, you have eschewed professional management of your retirement plan?
If not, could you explain your hypocrisy?
#7 By Throe-up 12:14a.m. on March 25, 2010
My so-called "retirement plan" is insolvent thanks to the very greed mentality I am speaking of.
In fact, whatever small amount of funds were in my 403B I shifted to U.S. Bonds BEFORE the economy tanked when the Stock Market was at 14, 300, in an uncharacteristic act of investment prescience. I have been told I should have put it back in the Market when it was a 6,500. In my opinion, that dipping in and out is shilling.
If I could participate in Dwight Hall's Green investing, I would be delighted.
How about getting Yale to put 50% of its 18 BILLION in Green Stocks? That would be REAL student activism.
A hypocrite "knowingly" speaks with forked tongue. I am simply a Wall Street illiterate.
However, to rephrase a famous Supreme Court justice, I know gambling when I see it.
And it makes me throe-up.
PK
BTW--Ben and Jerry's is another Noble Exception to unvarnished greed and shilling.
#8 By Auntie PK 10:18a.m. on March 26, 2010
A) You sidestep the question. By stating that you "shifted to U.S. bonds before the economy tanked" begs the (original) question: were you, indeed, invested in the stocks of those companies you decry? So, you WERE a hypocrite but now you are not? You repented? Or did you, as you imply, seek to PROTECT your self-implied ill-gotten gains (as shifting from stock to bonds, as you note, was a "prescient" move)?
B) "Dipping in and out is 'shilling'" But... isn't that EXACTLY what you did? You were in... now you are out (in a "prescient" move). BTW: if you are close to retirement, you should, of course, have a higher percentage of fixed-income securities. So... your self-congratulatory "goodness" is merely a residual of following whatever routine investment advice was offered by your plan, right?
C) Aren't you an English teacher? Could you please review the definition of "shilling" and explain how that pertains to the manner in which you employed the word? ('Cuz I'm too stoopid to unnerstan; I allus thot "shilling" was selling with verve, verging on hucksterism or false bidding in an auction to artificially bolster a price, but then, as noted, I'm stoopid.)
D)Lastly, let us discuss a bit more "hypocrisy" and "honesty." To wit: "VVSTRS is a... contributory, defined benefit plan to which its participating members make regular contributions to a trust fund AND the State of Vermont deposits an annual appropriation (contribution)...
"With a defined benefit plan a participant's actual retirement benefit is specifically determined by a formula... [blah, blah, blah]... The final benefit is not dependent on the amount of contributions made to the plan."
In other words, a VT teachers gets paid via taxes, then puts some percentage of those monies into a plan, that plan is augmented by VT (i.e., by taxes), and the benefit IS NOT DEPENDENT on those contributions (Why, because such plans--being gummint creations--typically pay out more than they take in, also known as UNFUNDED LIABILITIES. In other words--YOU WILL GET MORE OUT THAN YOU EVER PUT IN. In other words, a double sort of hypocrisy. *You* figure out how...).
Gorsh I canna stand Liberal whining wrapped in self-righteousness, based in ignorance and shouted with cult-like confidence. Ugh.
#9 By Shilly shallying 4:30p.m. on March 26, 2010
Such unpleasantness. It is unbecoming in the young. And it is not good for the health or the digestion.
A shill is a person who promotes something for a false purpose, a pretense which gives others a false confidence that you are engaged in an activity for sincere reasons.
I believe it is a pretense to call dipping in and out of the stock market"investing".
It is more like card-sharking it seems to me.
I don't intend to discuss my personal financial affairs with someone who is too cowardly to use her own name.
I consider your specific references prying and invasive and indicative of a lack of manners (an old world custom, you may not have come across in your many years on the planet.)
403B's are a way of deferring taxes. I use mine for that purpose. Overtly: It is not a shill.
Your anonymity however is tantamount to being a shill.
PK
The Anti-Yale
#10 By Invest vs. Gamble 9:26a.m. on March 27, 2010
[in-vest]
–verb (used with object)
1.to put (money) to use, by purchase or expenditure, in something offering potential profitable returns, as interest, income, or appreciation in value.
2.to use (money), as in accumulating something: (She invested large sums in books.
3.to use, give, or devote (time, talent, etc.), as for a purpose or to achieve something: (He invested a lot of time in helping retarded children.)
To return to Yale's "investment strategy":
I guess the real problem is not with the word "shill" but with the word "invest".
I am using definitions #3 above which I consider "old fashioned investing" and Yale is using definition # 1 which I consider to be a euphemism for "gambling".
Profits in the history of the Stock Market for the last 100 years have been in
OIL and its stepchild, automobiles;
WAR and its stepchildren, weapons, aircraft, ships,technology etc;
and BANKING which funds all the previous.
If Yale could be forced grudgingly to CEASE investing in Apartheid stocks in the 1970's (as it was so forced to do), then perhaps it could be forced to COMMENCE "investing" (#3 and #1) its EIGHTEEN BILLION dollars in Green Technology.
Then I would consider Yale as having a true "investment strategy" as opposed to a "gambling strategy" because it would be putting its money at risk for something it believed in as a moral enterprise rather than putting its money at risk simply for profits.
EIGHTEEN BILLION ain't chicken feed.
PK
The Anti-Yale
#11 By Auntie PK 6:57p.m. on March 27, 2010
Divestment occurred in the '80s, not the '70s (note, please, the correct placement of the apostrophe, Mr. English Teacher).
Yale was not "forced" to do anything; investment decisions are based mainly on potential for future return, even in the Eighties.
In the investment world, just to set you on the right path, the difference is between "investment" and "speculation" (what you would call "gambling"). Just trying to help out a fellow thinker; trying to help you get your terms straight.
Um... Yale invests far less in all the "evils" you cited (oil, war, banking, etc.). Yale mostly eschews common stocks, investing instead in less liquid propositions.
As for "prying," nothing I posted has to do with you personally, merely the facts regarding defined benefit pension plans and public school union employees (the most overpaid, most extortionist public "servants" out there, with the possible exception of politicians).
# 12 By Harmartia 3:30 p.m. on March 28, 2010
Character is Fate.
PK
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