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- đź“ť Endowment Report Cards
đź“ť Endowment Report Cards
Barry Sternlicht, Art Berman, Vaclav Smil, Torsten Slok, Jason Zweig & More
The Idea Farm
March 24, 2024
“Belief in near-miraculous tomorrows never goes away.”
Research
AQR revisits their top three investment ideas from 2023 and explains why they still like the set up for all three in 2024. They note:
Value remains cheap
Continued macroeconomic volatility creates opportunities for alternative trend strategies
The emerging market return premium over developed equities is still attractive
MPI - FY2023 Ivy Report Card: Volatility Laundering and the Hangover from Private Markets Investing (10 pages)
This analyzes the 2023 performance for Ivy and elite endowments. They note performance was poor, especially relative to a global 70/30 benchmark and smaller, less resourced endowments that invest in less private markets assets/funds.
Bonus Content
Vaclav Smil explains why it’s highly unlikely that the world is free of fossil carbon by 2050. Link
Robin Wigglesworth asks if private equity actually worth it. Link
Apollo’s Torsten Slok thinks Fed hikes have had a more limited impact on the economy because it’s dominated by larger companies, and larger companies generally have fixed rate debt. Link
Jason Zweig explains why you should be cautious when Wall Street sells you a high fee investment. Link
"But his name (Charles Feeney) appeared on none of the 1,000 buildings on five continents that he gave $2.7 billion to fund. Grants to institutions and individuals were paid by cashier’s checks to conceal the source." Link
Podcasts
 2/6/24 - 82 minutes | Real estate titan Barry Sternlicht shares stories and lessons from his career (you can’t miss the story about selling Caesars Palace). He also shares his view of the real estate landscape today. |
 2/29/24 - 60 minutes | Jason Calacanis talks with David Clark to discuss the importance of longevity in VC and takeaways from analyzing data from 12,000 companies. |
 3/8/2024 - 52 minutes | At 11:17, Art Berman joins Jeremy Schwartz to discuss everything oil and energy. He talks about energy blindness, the excess production of natural gas, and poor policy choices related to energy. |
What Else Is Happening
Did you miss last week’s email?
Meb Faber read his post, “Should CalPERS Fire Everyone And Just Buy Some ETFs?”
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