首席投资官致辞（《耶鲁捐赠基金2010年》）

A Message from During financial crises, investors frequently shorten their perspective to an unreason-Throughout the crisis, Yale resisted the flight to a safe haven and maintained its the Chief Investment ably short time horizon and often engage equity-oriented, well-diversified portfolio. in counterproductive activities. In 1987, With an investment horizon measured in O∞cer after the October market crash, portfolio decades, if not centuries, a commitment to managers sold stocks and bought bonds— equities generates the long-term returns selling low, buying high, and damaging necessary to provide significant support for portfolio prospects. In 1998, amid Long- current scholars, while maintaining pur-Term Capital Management’s threat to the chasing power for future generations. Sub-financial system, many investors rushed stantial allocations to alternative assets to exit hedge fund positions, liquidating o≠er a level of diversification unavailable to accounts at the point of maximum pain investors in traditional assets, allowing the (and maximum prospective opportunity). creation of portfolios with superior risk In 2008, during the most recent crisis, and return characteristics. investors behaved as they did in 1987 and Consider Yale’s ten-year return of 8.9 1998, disposing of assets that carried risk percent per annum, which remains atop the and illiquidity in favor of risk-free and institutional rankings. During that period, ultra-liquid U.S. government bonds. a portfolio with 70 percent in domestic After the onset of the 2008 crisis, Yale’s marketable equities and 30 percent in approach to endowment management, domestic bonds returned a disappointing with its focus on equities and emphasis on 1.5 percent per year. Yale’s alternative asset alternatives, received a great deal of criti- classes produced far superior results, with cism. A November 2008 Barron’s article, private equity returning 6.2 percent per titled “Crash Course,” typified the negative year, real estate 6.9 percent per year, abso-press, suggesting that the Yale model called lute return 11.1 percent per year, timber 12.1 for too much in alternatives and provided percent per year, and oil and gas 24.7 per-too little diversification. The antidote— cent per year. When evaluated over a rea-more traditional stocks and bonds. sonably long time horizon, alternatives Barron’s was promoting the trade of (many of which are illiquid) contributed the day. Investors with large allocations mightily to the University’s results. to marketable bonds (particularly U.S. During the decade ending June 30, Treasury securities) and publicly traded 2010, Yale’s investment program added equities fare better in the heart of a crisis $7.9 billion relative to the results of the (as the bonds benefit from a flight to average endowment. The University’s safety) and in the immediate aftermath of twenty-year returns tell a similar story. A a crisis (as the stocks benefit from a relief market-leading return of 13.1 percent per rally). Viewed in the narrow timeframe of annum produced $12.1 billion in value the crisis, liquid assets performed better added to support Yale’s mission of teaching than illiquid assets and safe assets per- and research. Sensible long-term policies, formed better than risky assets. Viewed in grounded by a commitment to equities and a timeframe more appropriate for a long- a belief in diversification, underpin the term investor, well-chosen positions in University’s investment success. illiquid assets perform better than other-wise comparable liquid assets and well-selected portfolios of risky assets produce better returns than risk-free U.S. Treasury securities.

David F. Swensen