Endowment Investment Philosophy® White Paper
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Investor Use ENDOWMENT INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY® WHITE PAPER Abstract The purpose of this white paper is to explain why the Endowment Investment Philosophy ® is a better option to manage your wealth. The Endowment Investment Philosophy is rooted in the basic idea that financial markets as defined by 2-dimensional stock and bond portfolios are inherently efficient and to exploit inefficiencies investors have to extend their investment universe to include alternative investments. The Endowment Investment Philosophy seeks to replicate the 3-dimensional asset allocations built by Yale, Harvard, and over 800 other university endowments across the nation. Why? Because these institutions have historically exhibited an ability to beat an equity -only index. By separating their long-term capital appreciation goals from their short -term liquidity needs, University Endowments expand their time horizons to reduce volatility concerns. This allows them to exhibit behavioral characteristics that make them more disciplined and less susceptible to emotional biases, and more heavily weight ed to the highest-expected return asset classes. Prateek Mehrotra, MBA, CFA, CAIA ©Copyright 2013-2020 Endowment Wealth Management, Inc. White Paper: Endowment Investment Philosophy® WHAT IS THE ENDOWMENT INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY? The Endowment Investment Philosophy builds 3-dimensional portfolios using an asset allocation methodology pursued by major universities like Yale and Harvard as it offers the potential for superior risk-adjusted returns and lower volatility across a complete market cycle. This investment philosophy expands the number of asset classes and strategies used to create a 3-D portfolio by including alternative investments such as hedge funds, private equity, and real assets, in addition to traditional stocks and bonds. The addition of alternative investments provides an expanded universe of strategies that can be employed to enhance returns and/or reduce risk We like to refer to this third dimension as the “Risk Managed” segment, augmenting the Growth and Income buckets in an overall asset allocation framework. 3-D ENDOWMENT: STOCKS, BONDS & ALTERNATIVES Stocks (Growth) 36% 52% Bonds (Income) 12% Alternatives (Risk Managed) 2-D TRADITIONAL: STOCKS AND BONDS STOCKS 40% (Growth) 60% BONDS (Income) Endowment Wealth Management, Inc. www.EndowmentWM.com P a g e | 1 White Paper: Endowment Investment Philosophy® HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATION: Adding Asset Classes To A Portfolio Can Help Improve Returns 3-D Endowment Portfolio More Diversified Portfolio Endowment Wealth Management, Inc. www.EndowmentWM.com P a g e | 2 White Paper: Endowment Investment Philosophy® Annualized Returns By Asset Class (July 2000 – December 2019) 12.00 10.00 8.00 Return (%) Return 6.00 10.77 9.46 8.83 8.65 4.00 8.03 7.65 7.63 7.56 7.38 6.24 5.93 5.45 4.55 2.00 4.33 Annualized 0.00 For illustrative purposes only. Returns are annualized, (and Asset Class Representative Index total return is presented where applicable) and represent period 07/01/2000 – 12/31/2019. Results of 3 Asset Class US Large-Cap Equity: S&P 500 TR portfolio and 12 Asset Class portfolio calculated by means of US Small-Cap Equity: Russell 2000 a backtest using the targeted asset class weights and annualized rebalancing. Returns assume reinvestment of International Developed Equity: MSCI EAFE Investable Market dividends, and do not account for the impact of taxes. Emerging Markets Equity: MSCI Emerging Markets Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Backtests have certain limitations, including the benefit of hindsight. Global Bonds: Barclays Global Aggregate Bond You typically cannot invest directly in an index. Indexes don't Global High Yield: Barclays Global High Yield have fees. See back pages for index descriptions and backtest disclosure. Emerging Markets Bond: JP Morgan EMBI Global Diversified Hedge Strategies: Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index Private Equity: Red Rocks Global Listed Private Equity US REITs: MSCI US REIT International REITs: S&P Global Ex US Property TR Commodities: SummerHaven Dynamic Commodity Endowment Wealth Management, Inc. www.EndowmentWM.com P a g e | 3 White Paper: Endowment Investment Philosophy® HOW DOES THE ENDOWMENT INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY LOWER PORTFOLIO RISK? Before we answer this question, we need to define and quantify “risk”. Risk can be thought of in the following different ways: 1. In the traditional statistical sense, risk is quantified as an annualized volatility number, often represented as standard deviation. The higher the volatility number, the higher the risk. However, one needs to also distinguish between upside and downside volatility, as any upside volatility is considered to be generally good. 2. In another traditional statistical sense, risk can also be quantified as the “maximum draw down” or the maximum decline in value from peak-to-trough. The larger this decline, the higher the portfolio has to increase in value to break-even. For example, if a portfolio declines by 50% in value from peak-to-trough, it has to increase by 100% to break-even. The 75% plus decline in the value of the Nasdaq index since peaking in March-2000, required a 300% increase to just break-even. This took 15 years, as the index finally breached a new high in 2015. 3. A third consideration is permanent loss of capital, whether due to fraud or complete loss of an investment’s value from bankruptcy or re-structuring, where the entire initial capital is wiped out with no ability to recoup value. Generally speaking, adding lower correlated asset classes to a portfolio helps to lower the overall volatility and maximum drawdowns of a portfolio. For example, for the 20 years ended December 31, 2019, a two-dimensional global stock bond portfolio experienced a maximum drawdown of 34.7% from peak-to-trough, which occurred from Nov’07 to Feb’09. Keep in mind that this recent time period has had two cyclical bull and bear markets, each within the context of an overall secular bear market that started after the equity markets peaked in March of 2000 and which in our opinion still continues. A three-dimensional endowment styled portfolio which includes a risk- managed segment (represented by Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index) with equal allocation to the three broad asset classes declined 23.2%, substantially less than a two-dimensional stock bond portfolio. Moreover, the annualized volatility of the three-dimensional portfolio was 5.9% as compared to the two-dimensional portfolio at 9.7%. Another way to illustrate the above risk reduction concept is through the following diagram referred to as an Efficient Frontier. As you can see below, adding just one element of the risk managed bucket, namely hedge funds, helps reduce the annualized standard deviation while maintaining returns at the same level as a 60-40 stock bond portfolio. Endowment Wealth Management, Inc. www.EndowmentWM.com P a g e | 4 White Paper: Endowment Investment Philosophy® Source: Efficient Frontier - Including Allocation to Alternatives (Jul 2000 - Dec 2019) Allocating to alternatives may decrease risk 7.0% 6.5% S&P 500 6.0% Credit Suisse Hedge Fund 3 Asset Class 5.5% Index Portfolio 5.0% Returns (Annualized) Returns 4.5% BBgBarc Global 4.0% Aggregate Bond Index 4.0% 6.0% 8.0% 10.0% 12.0% 14.0% Standard Deviation (Annualized) Past performance is not an indication of future results. Index returns are provided for illustrative purposes only to demonstrate the use of diversification among asset classes using broad-based indices of securities. Returns do not represent an actual investment. Actual investment returns would vary. Indices do not have costs, fees, or other expenses associated with their performance. Therefore, actual investment returns would be lower. In addition, securities held in an index may not be similar to securities held in an actual account. It is not possible to invest directly in an index. DOES THE ENDOWMENT INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY INCREASE RETURNS? While the risk-managed bucket is used to mainly reduce the risk of a portfolio, it can also be used to enhance returns, through the use of private equity and real assets. Primarily, if these asset classes are implemented through private investment partnerships, it can help capture the illiquidity premium, which enhances the returns from liquid securities. As an example, Yale University’s endowment, as of its fiscal year ended June 2019, was valued at $30.3 billion, making it the second largest university endowment. Its long-term performance over the last 10 and 20-year periods, ending June 2019, was 11.1% and 11.4% per year as compared to a two dimensional 60:40 global stock-bond portfolio which returned 7.8% and 5.5% per year, respectively. Endowment Wealth Management, Inc. www.EndowmentWM.com P a g e | 5 White Paper: Endowment Investment Philosophy® DOES THE ENDOWMENT INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY INCREASE RISK-ADJUSTED RETURNS? We like to measure risk-adjusted returns in terms of the Sharpe Ratio. This ratio was developed by Nobel laureate William F. Sharpe to measure risk-adjusted performance. The Sharpe ratio is calculated by subtracting the risk-free rate - such as that of the US Treasury T-Bill Auction Average 3-month - from the rate of return for a portfolio and dividing the result by the standard deviation of the portfolio returns. The Sharpe ratio formula is: The Sharpe ratio tells us whether a portfolio's returns are due to smart investment decisions or a result of excess risk. This measurement is very useful because although one portfolio or fund can reap higher returns than its peers, it is only a good investment if those higher returns do not come with too much additional risk. The greater a portfolio's Sharpe ratio, the better its risk-adjusted performance has been. A negative Sharpe ratio indicates that a riskless asset would perform better than the security being analyzed. Given that adding alternative investments helps reduce risk and may increase returns, it implies, that risk-adjusted returns or Sharpe Ratios of an endowment portfolio will be superior to a two- dimensional stock bond portfolio.