Insights

In Private Investment, Diverse Fund Management Teams Have Opened Doors

Portfolio diversification is fundamental to effective investment risk management. The term “diversification” traditionally includes asset classes, investment approaches, industry sectors, and geographies. But a vital and often-overlooked dimension of diversification is the people driving portfolio decision making. This dimension of diversification may be especially important in private markets because an asset manager’s deal sourcing is […]

March 2024

VantagePoint: Can US Equity Dominance Be Sustained?

Since 2010, US equities have been unstoppable, outperforming developed markets equities outside the United States (DM ex US) by a whopping 5.5 percentage points (ppts) annually, with few periods of short-lived, intermittent underperformance. Recently, this outperformance has been led by a small set of US tech giants. In this edition of VantagePoint, we review the […]

February 2024

Are Emerging Markets Equities Finally Set to Outperform, Given Expectations for Federal Reserve Rate Cuts This Year?

No. Although emerging markets (EM) stocks typically outperform after the onset of Federal Reserve easing, we suspect this episode will be different. The growing chance of a US soft landing—coupled with sluggish growth expectations globally—suggest that cuts could be modest and that the US dollar will hold its value. These conditions do not meaningfully shift […]

February 2024

The United Kingdom and Japan Entered Technical Recessions in Q4

UK GDP fell by more than expected in fourth quarter 2023, according to new data released on February 15, 2024, which pushed the country into a technical recession. It joined fellow G7 economy, Japan, which had earlier undershot expectations and delivered a second consecutive quarter of negative growth. Despite contrasting fortunes in UK and Japanese […]

February 2024

Will There be a Second Wave of Inflation?

No, we expect Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation will continue to moderate toward central bank target levels in 2024. As a result, we believe key central banks will cut policy rates modestly this year to avoid overtightening. This should support our view that investors should hold a modest overweight to long Treasury bonds. Global inflation […]

February 2024

The Transformative Public University Endowment

In today’s dynamic funding and operating environment, a lot is at stake for public colleges and universities and their endowments. The public university endowment is more than a static funding source; with strong stewardship, a growing endowment can transform a university’s financial equation. The most forward-thinking public universities use their endowments for far more than […]

January 2024

A Changed Investment Landscape Is Providing Greater Opportunity for US Corporate Pensions

Over the past decade, executives overseeing corporate defined benefit (DB) pension plans have experienced significant regulatory reform and a full reversal of investment conditions. While rising liabilities once offset asset gains, the opposite is now true. Yet many organizations haven’t recalibrated their approach to plan management in response, leaving them exposed to unnecessary costs and […]

January 2024

SEC Approves Spot Bitcoin ETFs

On January 10, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the trading of spot bitcoin ETFs, roughly ten years after the first application. The approval follows last year’s decision by a US Appeals Court that limited the SEC’s discretion in denying applications. While we doubt this decision will meaningfully impact sophisticated investors in the […]

January 2024