The End of the Fed's Tightening Cycle Nears

Today, the Federal Reserve raised the Fed funds target range by 25 basis points (bps), to 4.75%–5.00%, as expected, and signaled it expects at least another 25 bps of additional rate hikes will be necessary to bring down inflation. This announcement and the recent turmoil in the banking sector increase our confidence that the Fed […]

March 2023

US Pensions: Higher Interest Rates Call for a Fixed Income Reassessment

What a difference a year makes. In the second half of 2021, investors were talking about a potential prolonged Goldilocks market. By year-end 2022, the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index had posted its worst annual return on record and the S&P 500 had experienced a substantial pullback from recent historical highs. Amid this turbulence, pension […]

March 2023

Video: While Great Entrepreneurs Leap, Great Investors Plan

Whether actively running their company or beginning to step away from day-to-day oversight, entrepreneurs and business owners often face similar challenges as they focus more on investing their hard-earned capital. In the evolution from entrepreneur to investor, an openness to new approaches and ideas is essential. In the below video, Jeff Bauer, Managing Director of […]

March 2023

Has Our Broad Investment Outlook Changed Considering the Recent Bank Collapses?

No. We continue to think investors should tightly manage risk by keeping equity allocations and bond duration in line with broad policy targets and resist the temptation to time the market. We entered the year with those views, which depended on our expectation that recessions in the United States and euro area were likely, given […]

March 2023

Regulators Seek to Contain SVB Fallout

Following no US bank failures in the last two years, two banks failed in the last three days—Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank. As the situation evolved last week, investors, businesses, and regulators became increasingly concerned about SVB and risks to the broader economy. Over the weekend, US officials from the Federal Reserve, Treasury, […]

March 2023

A Social & Environmental Equity Investing Framework for Better Real-World Outcomes

Investing can often feel like steering a ship through stormy seas, traversing risks seen and unseen. In recent years, the siren song of investment products that appear aligned with achieving genuine social and financial returns—but are merely designed to attract assets—is one such danger. And this trend, coupled with economic uncertainty, creates a perfect storm […]

March 2023

Inverted World: The Attractiveness of Short-Term Tiers for Healthcare Systems

A healthcare system’s investment structure is intentionally aligned to match varying enterprise needs over the short, intermediate, and long term. Most have gravitated toward the use of tiers—pools of capital delineated as available immediately (operating cash), within the next few years (short-duration bonds), or strategically over time (long-term investment pools). However, the need for capital […]

March 2023

Multiemployer Plans Receiving SFA Program Assets Face Critical Allocation Choices

Regulations are often controversial, but few in recent history have had so many different interpretations and large revisions as the Special Financial Assistance (SFA) program for underfunded multiemployer pension plans (MEPP). Now that the dust has settled, one of the biggest risks for plan sponsors is not taking full advantage of the opportunities that are […]

February 2023