Services Tags: Investment Consulting

Treasury Market Creates a Balancing Act

Despite the U.S. economy’s impressive growth in recent decades, the federal government currently faces elevated borrowing costs to fund its persistent budget deficits. While current bid-to-cover ratios remain robust in absolute terms, a declining trend in shorter maturities could represent one early warning sign that the traditional investor base demand is waning.

This newsletter examines the Treasury’s challenge of balancing funding costs with market demand and potential fiscal and monetary policy implications.

2025 Halftime Market Insights

This video is a recording of a live webinar held July 17 by Marquette’s research team analyzing the first half of the year across the economy and various asset classes as well as themes we’ll be monitoring through the rest of 2025.

 

Our quarterly Market Insights series examines the primary asset classes we cover for clients including the U.S. economy, fixed income, U.S. and non-U.S. equities, hedge funds, real assets, and private markets, with commentary by our research analysts and directors.

Featuring:
Greg Leonberger, FSA, EA, MAAA, FCA, Partner, Director of Research
Frank Valle, CFA, CAIA, Associate Director of Fixed Income
James Torgerson, Senior Research Analyst
Catherine Hillier, Senior Research Analyst
David Hernandez, CFA, Director of Traditional Manager Search
Evan Frazier, CFA, CAIA, Senior Research Analyst
Dennis Yu, Research Analyst
Amy Miller, Associate Director of Private Equity
Chad Sheaffer, CFA, CAIA Senior Research Analyst

Sign up for research alerts to be invited to future webinars and notified when we publish new videos.

If you have any questions, please send our team an email.

Nat Kellogg Speaking at GCM Grosvenor 2025 SEM Consortium 10/28

On Tuesday, October 28, Nat Kellogg, CFA will be speaking at GCM Grosvenor’s 2025 Small and Emerging Managers Conference, SEM Consortium in New York City.

Nat will be joining a panel entitled, “Advising Through Uncertainty: Consultant Insights for the Current Market,” with fellow investment consultants discussing how they are navigating the current market environment with clients for LPs to better understand current trends and opportunities and managers to identify which consultants could be a fit with their strategy.

SEM Consortium’s mission is to educate institutional investors and consultants on best practices of allocating to small and emerging managers, while providing managers with training and insights to help them fundraise and grow their businesses.  For more information, please visit the event website.

Policy Uncertainty Blurs the Outlook

As we enter the second half of the year, Liberation Day-induced market volatility seems like a distant memory with the S&P hitting another all-time high on July 10th and non-U.S. stocks significantly outpacing their U.S. counterparts through June 30th. Meanwhile, the One Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law by President Trump on July 4th with varying expectations on its impact to growth but a consensus view that it will push the deficit higher.

In this edition:

  • Tariff and policy uncertainty
  • Risk factors and market indicators
  • Equity market drivers
  • Currency and regional trends
  • What to watch in the second half

Tim Burdick and David Hernandez Speaking at Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Event 10/16

On Thursday, October 16, Tim Burdick, CFA and David Hernandez, CFA will be speaking at an educational session hosted by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee: “Fundholders Investment Update: Market Review & Global Equity Outlook.”

The conversation will cover:

  • Current market trends and federal policy shifts that shape our investment environment
  • An in-depth review of Community Foundation’s portfolio, built for resilience and long-term growth
  • Insight into global equities and what lies ahead in 2025, paired with a perspective on how these dynamics strengthen the impact of your individual fund in the community

For more information, please visit the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee website.

Why Are Emerging Markets Investors Removing Their China Exposure?

Emerging markets (EM) equities have gone through cycles of performance throughout time, creating varied investor sentiment towards the asset class. Recently, discussions around excluding China from investment portfolios have become more common, spurring the growth of active EM ex-China strategies. This newsletter explores the current landscape of EM investing, examines the drivers of the EM ex-China trend, and analyzes the performance impact of removing China from an EM allocation.

Marquette Speaking at Institutional Investor 2025 Roundtable for Consultants & Institutional Investors 10/8

On Wednesday, October 8, Nat Kellogg, CFA, Frank Valle, CFA, CAIA, and Evan Frazier, CFA, CAIA will be speaking at Institutional Investor’s 2025 Roundtable for Consultants & Institutional Investors in Chicago.

Nat will be joining a panel entitled, “Consultant CEO/CIO Perspective: Keep Calm & Carry On – Steering Through Volatility,” discussing the following questions:

  • It’s been an interesting year…. What are your biggest takeaways, surprises, and/or lessons learned?
  • Are your approaches to risk and asset allocation changing in this environment? How are you advising your clients for the near and longer term? How to form long-term return expectations amid such heightened uncertainty and volatility? How to prioritize investments/assets to invest in?
  • Beyond diversification, how do you mitigate volatility in portfolios? What does a resilient portfolio look like today?
  • What investment opportunities are you most/least excited about? Are there opportunities emerging from the shifting market dynamics that you are paying particular attention to?
  • How are you viewing the ‘democratization’ of private markets? Will this unlock more opportunities for institutional investors or limit them?
  • Have your manager selection processes changed, or do you anticipate them changing? If so, why and how?
  • At this event last year we discussed the evolving role of investment consultants and the growing scope of asset owner needs: how has this conversation moved forward over this past 12 months?
  • How are you viewing continued consolidation within the investment consulting and the asset management industries? What are the implications for allocators?
  • Are you approaching 2026 with optimism or pessimism? What is one piece of professional advice that you would give the allocators in the audience?

Frank will be co-leading a session entitled, “Think Tank: Balancing Liquidity and Diversification in Fixed Income Portfolios.”

Evan will be joining a panel entitled, “Strategically Leveraging Hedge Funds Today – The Allocator Perspective,” described as follows: As allocators reassess the role of hedge funds in their portfolios we dig into the “how’s and the why’s” — are they being used to offset privates in the portfolio, as a fixed income substitute or for something else? Are they primarily being used for diversification and downside protection or to capture alpha in a higher-volatility environment? Portable alpha and quant strategies are back in vogue — what are the ingredients from a macroeconomic perspective for differing strategies? In this session we hear how allocators are leveraging hedge funds, what they are looking for from their inclusion and how they are capitalizing on their strategies.

The Roundtable for Consultants & Institutional Investors will offer insights from leading industry experts and a forum for valuable exchanges with peers. For more information, please visit the event webpage.

One Big Beautiful Bill Act: Excise Tax Changes Legislative Update

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4, 2025. The legislation includes significant updates to the excise tax structure on net investment income of certain educational institutions, with direct implications for private colleges and universities related to their endowments.

This legislative update addresses considerations for investors regarding:

  • Changes to the current excise tax for private colleges and universities
  • Private foundation excise tax
  • Scrutiny of tax-exempt debt issuance
  • Reinstatement of a universal charitable deduction

2025 OCIO Update

Marquette Associates is proud to be recognizing 15 years of providing OCIO management services. We stepped into this business in 2010 at the request of clients looking to delegate decision-making authority for their investment programs. Through the trust of that growing cohort of clients, our asset base has grown to $28 billion across 231 portfolios on behalf of 99 individual clients as of June 30, 2025. Please read Marquette’s 2025 OCIO Update from Brian Wrubel, Nat Kellogg, CFA, and Jessica Noviskis, CFA at the link below.

Read > 2025 OCIO Update

Matt Nowak Speaking at 2025 11th Annual GAPPT Trustee School 9/16

On September 16, Matt Nowak, AIF® will be speaking at the Georgia Association of Public Pension Trustees (GAPPT) Eleventh Annual Trustee School in Macon, Georgia.

Matt will be presenting an educational session for attendees entitled, “What Does it Take to Retire on a DC Plan ONLY.”  The GAPPT is a nonprofit organization formed to provide education and professional development opportunities to trustees and administrators of Georgia’s public pension plans. Subject areas span fiduciary responsibility and liability, board governance, investment acumen, and plan administration. For more information, please visit the GAPPT website.