Finding an Investment Niche: LA’s Underappreciated Tech Ecosystem
With a ready supply of technical talent and entrepreneurial opportunities, Los Angeles is emerging as an interesting venture capital opportunity.
Research Publications Archive
What Role Do Real Assets Play in a Portfolio?
Real assets play a variety of roles in a portfolio, including driving growth, generating income, providing diversification, and preserving wealth. Sizing of real assets holdings and the composition of a real assets portfolio should be driven by both investor needs and the intended role of these assets in the portfolio. Generally speaking, portfolios holding real…
Annual Analysis of Foundation Investment Pool Returns: Calendar Year 2014
This report reviews portfolio returns, asset allocation, investment manager structures, and payout characteristics for 112 foundations. Analysis and exhibits include performance attribution, risk analytics, policy portfolio benchmarking, the impact of private investment programs on portfolio liquidity, the use of external managers by asset class, payout rates, payout distribution components, and payout objectives.
UK Equities: Curbed Enthusiasm
UK large-cap stocks are undervalued, but lack a clear near-term catalyst to unlock this value; mid-cap valuations are moving higher, but so too are earnings.
Has Recent Market Action Created Opportunities for Investors?
The answer depends on what kind of investor you are.
Navigating the Diversified Growth Fund Maze
Diversified growth funds (DGFs) have garnered significant attention and assets—particularly amongst UK defined benefit pension schemes—as a less volatile source of long-term growth. DGFs can be valuable tools for pension portfolio management, but only if trustees understand what they are buying and how it fits into the context of the total portfolio. The simple bifurcation of the available products into traditional and absolute return strategies can be a starting point for trustees to help make sense of the market and set appropriate risk/return expectations across different market environments.
Value in the Oil Patch, for Investors With a Strong Stomach
Fundamentals and share prices have come under pressure for natural resources equities this year, but we continue to believe they offer strong long-term return prospects.
Activist Funds: The New, New Thing . . . Or Here We Go Again?
Given a choice today between competing investment strategies, activists would not be near the top of our list, as the fawning attention over successful activists has narrowed the available opportunity set by boosting the available pool of money and drawing in new managers.
Has This Summer’s Sell-Off in Energy-Related MLPs Changed Their Appeal to Investors?
For value-biased investors, energy master limited partnerships (MLPs) are (somewhat suddenly) more appealing than they have been in several years.
Spending Policy Practices: 2015
The data and analysis in this report cover a variety of spending topics including spending rule types, the endowment’s support of operations, and effective spending rates. This year’s report also introduces the Cambridge Associates Endowment Spending Model.