November 03, 2016 01:00 AM

Ivy League endowment performance

Yale's endowment ran away from its Ivy League peers during the 2016 fiscal year with a 3.4% total return, according to a report from Markov Process International. Princeton came in second place with an 0.8% return, the only other school with a positive return.

The Yale endowment has historically, and with much notoriety, favored private equity, real estate and hedge funds, and consequently put less emphasis on publicly traded equities. Private investments accounted for less than 90% of its portfolio, following the school's approach to its long-term investment horizon and its long-held investment philosophy developed by David Swenson. The approach to private vs. public investing is not unique to Yale; the other collegiate plans in the study allocate between 55% and 85% of their assets to private investments. Yale is the only endowment to increase its bonds and cash exposure over the past 10 years.

Commodity exposure was a major demarcation line for returns, as the asset class had significant negative impact on returns for Harvard, Cornell and Brown.