Domestic equity, hedge fund and fixed-income returns help fuel Harvard's outperformance in 2013

Harvard Management Co. released its 2013 fiscal year results this week, revealing the school's endowment returned 11.3% through the year ended June 30, outperforming its benchmark by 220 basis points. The university's domestic equity portfolio was up 26.6% for the year, compared to 21.3% for its benchmark. Its absolute-return portfolio had very strong relative performance in 2013, returning 13.2% vs. 6.8% for the benchmark. And although the fund's fixed-income investments represented less than 9% of the portfolio, the asset class posted the strongest relative performance at 3.3% for the year, while the benchmark lost 3.4%.