Insights

Is the Environment for Active Management Improving?

We are asked this question on a regular basis, but believe it is fundamentally the wrong question for investors to ask if they are seeking to outperform the market over the long term.

February 2018

VantagePoint: First Quarter 2018

The start of the year is a good time for planning and reviewing your investment strategy. In this edition of VantagePoint, we facilitate that effort by setting the record straight on some commonly held investment myths. Top 10 Investment Myths 10. Smart beta investing is a superior form of passive management 9. Disruptions in oil […]

January 2018

Outlook 2018: Stick Around for Dessert

In our 2018 outlook, we review the prospects for several asset classes—developed and emerging markets equities, credit, real assets, sovereign bonds, and currencies—and share the advice of our chief investment strategist.

December 2017

Proposed Tax on Endowment Income Would Mean Difficult Choices for Many Schools

College and university leaders are paying close attention to the tax plans moving through the Senate and House. As currently written, both proposals would levy a 1.4% tax on net investment income earned during the tax year for private colleges and universities. The House version proposed the tax be applied to schools with assets of at […]

December 2017

Should Institutional Investors Hold Cryptocurrencies?

In our opinion, institutional investors are better served focusing on investing in companies seeking to profit from the development and adoption of blockchain technology and “fintech” more broadly than holding cryptocurrencies directly.

November 2017

A Balancing Act: Strategies for Financial Executives in Managing Pension Risk

As pressures on pensions mount, we believe financial executives are best served by re-evaluating major decisions in terms of the true tools at their disposal. In this paper we review four levers that are fundamental drivers of pension costs and outcomes: asset returns, liability hedging, contribution policy, and benefit management. Balancing these levers is critical to enabling greater probability of success in managing pension risk, and we introduce a framework for chief financial officers and other financial executives to use in doing so.

November 2017

Is Private Equity Replacing Public Equity?

It sure looks like it. The increasingly unforgiving nature of public equity markets, coupled with the continued evolution and growth of private investment markets, is making it easier for more companies to stay private, with some CEOs avowing to do so indefinitely.

November 2017

Should Investors Position Themselves for US Tax Reform?

We would not seek to position portfolios specifically for tax reform as markets have already priced in some improvement in earnings from tax cuts, and the winners and losers from the proposed tax changes will not be clear until more details are provided.

October 2017