While it is generally accepted that successfully and consistently timing the equity market is a loser’s bet, the same sentiment is not heard as often in the bond market. However, timing interest rates is just as difficult as equity markets and can lead to the same patterns of underperformance over multiple market cycles. Nonetheless, the recent rate volatility may be a temptation to shorten duration in anticipation of further rate rises. The following analysis examines why this strategy could be difficult to execute successfully, and why we recommend that clients stay the course and remain invested in line with their investment policies.
The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.
Quite simply, this has been the worst start to a year since the 1930s:
One of only 19 quarters since 1976 when both bonds and stocks posted negative returns;
One of only six of those quarters when bonds have underperformed stocks;
The worst four-month return for the S&P 500 since 1939.
2022 to date has featured a myriad of macroeconomic factors coming to a head: inflation at its highest level since the 1980s, the Federal Reserve responding with aggressive rate hikes, and increasing concerns about the health of the consumer leading to a possible recession. An evolving pandemic, a war in Eastern Europe, and draconian lockdown policies in the world’s second-largest economy and largest manufacturing hub have further added to the problem and complicated the solution. With these macro headwinds and uncertainties driving markets year-to-date, Marquette’s fixed income, U.S. equities, and non-U.S. equities teams discuss the impacts on their asset classes and weigh in on the outlook from here.
The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.
One of the most significant evolutions in our business over the last decade has been the growth of our Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (“OCIO”) services platform. What at first seemed like chance requests over a decade ago from a handful of clients looking for additional help managing their portfolios has become increasingly mainstream. More than half of our prospective client engagements last year inquired about OCIO services. Our experience is certainly reflective of a broader industry trend as OCIO assets under management have grown from $90 billion to an estimated $2.7 trillion over the last fifteen years.¹ Given the industry growth and increased interest in OCIO services from our client base, we thought we’d share our experience as to why institutions are asking about OCIO and what the major challenges are that Marquette has helped these clients solve.
The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.
This video coincides with our 2022 Market Preview letter from Director of Research Greg Leonberger, FSA, EA, MAAA and provides analysis of last year’s performance as well as trends, themes, opportunities, and risks to watch for in 2022.
Our 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 estate, infrastructure, private equity, and private credit, with presentations by our research analysts and directors.
Featuring:
Greg Leonberger, FSA, EA, MAAA, Director of Research, Managing Partner
Tanner Maupin, Research Associate
Colleen Flannery, Research Analyst, U.S. Equities
David Hernandez, CFA, Senior Research Analyst, Non-U.S. Equities
Nat Kellogg, CFA, President, Director of Manager Search
Josh Cabrera, CFA, Senior Research Analyst, Real Assets
Derek Schmidt, CFA, CAIA, Director of Private Equity
Brett Graffy, CAIA, Senior Research Analyst
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The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs. Marquette is an independent investment adviser registered under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. More information about Marquette including our investment strategies, fees, and objectives can be found in our ADV Part 2, which is available upon request.
In this video, the authors of our recent white paper discuss the 60/40 model portfolio — a long-time approach to portfolio construction that generally consists of a 60% allocation to equities and a 40% allocation to fixed income. From the decades of success the 60/40 portfolio has experienced (and why) to skepticism about its future viability in light of the current low interest rate and expensive equity market environment and how organizations may still be able to meet their return targets, we seek to answer if the 60/40 portfolio’s efficiency is a thing of the past.
Marquette’s In Context series brings our latest research to your screen, with discussion led by the authors behind Marquette’s papers and newsletters. From current events and trends to portfolio strategy and the broader economic landscape, we explore the questions investors are asking with consideration and the context you need to know.
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For more information, questions, or feedback, please send us an email.
The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs. Marquette is an independent investment adviser registered under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. More information about Marquette including our investment strategies, fees, and objectives can be found in our ADV Part 2, which is available upon request.
Model portfolios — or those which adhere to a specific set of guidelines surrounding asset allocation and rebalancing — are often utilized by investors because of their rules-based nature, which eliminates the need for constant monitoring. One such model is the “60/40 portfolio,” which consists of a 60% allocation to diversified equities and a 40% allocation to a broad basket of fixed income securities. Due to the imperfect correlation between stock and bond returns, the 60/40 model has enjoyed decades of success at both providing its users with strong absolute returns and suitable protection during market drawdowns. Additionally, there is an intuitive attraction of the 60/40 portfolio due to its relative simplicity of holding just stocks and bonds as its underlying investments. That said, skepticism abounds regarding the model’s viability going forward in light of the current interest rate environment and low forecasted equity returns, particularly for those investors like endowments and foundations with specified spending requirements.
The aim of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of the 60/40 model going forward and provide guidance to investors whose spending targets require an expected return that is consistent with the historical performance of 60/40 portfolios, which has typically hovered around 8%.
The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.
Though the leaves have only started to change color, holiday party planning is in full swing. And while ample food and drink are necessary inputs for any type of holiday celebration, it’s the guests who ultimately make the party…or break it. In a way, this dynamic isn’t all that different from the markets — at any given time, the prevailing economic and market conditions will dictate investor returns. Given this analogy, we thought it could be fun to take a survey of the “attendees” in the current market environment and see if we can draw a connection with real-life examples along with what each guest means to the success of the party…and investor. Oh, and one caveat as we go — similar to actual party planning, sometimes we don’t want to invite someone, but we have to invite this person; circling back to the financial markets, we can’t control what forces exist in the markets, but we will do our best to determine those that will be merry and those that will not. Confused? Don’t worry, I am too, but we’ll figure this as we go through the invite list.
Watch our Q3 2021 Market Insights Video for an in-depth analysis of the third quarter’s performance by Marquette’s research team.
The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.
The first three quarters of 2021 have seen positive performance from a variety of asset classes ranging from U.S. and international equities to bank loans, which have exhibited returns close to their 10-year averages. However, one segment of the market that has experienced strong, aberrational performance on a year-to-date basis is commodities. Through the end of September, the S&P GSCI, a broad-based index that includes futures contracts on physical commodities, has returned 38.3% since the beginning of the year, far in excess of its long-term average. Recent performance for the asset class has largely been driven by surging demand for raw materials amid economic reopenings, coupled with pandemic-fueled supply chain dislocations, which caused the prices of many commodities to skyrocket. For instance, both lumber and copper experienced all-time highs during the first half of 2021, while agricultural commodity prices reached a 7-year peak earlier in the year as a result of strong demand for meat. Oil consumption also hit a seasonally adjusted high in July of 2021, which led to a 50% increase in the price of crude futures from the year prior. As the global economy continues to reopen, labor shortages, supply chain bottlenecks, and strong demand for raw materials will likely persist, meaning that positive performance from commodities may continue into 2022.
As investors assess the prospects of the commodities space going forward, it is important to keep historical context in mind. To that point, our chart this week examines both the 10-year annualized returns and standard deviations for eleven different asset classes to better understand the long-term performance profiles of each one. As displayed in the chart, the real estate space, as measured by the NCREIF index, has posted strong returns in the last decade as well as a low standard deviation (though the illiquid nature of the asset class may lead to some volatility smoothing). Equities have tended to exhibit higher levels of return and standard deviation than fixed income, while Small Cap indices have notched both higher returns and volatility than their larger peers across the geography spectrum. Interestingly, each of the asset classes profiled in the chart has yielded positive performance in the last 10 years with the exception of one: commodities. For the 10-year period ending September 30th, 2021, the S&P GSCI posted an annualized return of -4.8%. Additionally, the index has experienced an annualized standard deviation of 21.4% during that same period, which is again the most extreme of any of the asset classes in the chart above. Put simply, commodities have exhibited both the lowest returns and highest levels of risk of any major asset class in the last 10 years. As investors assess recent strong performance from the space and look to the future, it is crucial to avoid recency bias and keep history in mind. Prudence dictates a diversified approach to asset allocation in order to hedge uncertainty and achieve optimal risk-adjusted returns.
The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.
While it has been a very strong decade for private market returns, not all private market strategies have provided the same level of risk-adjusted returns. Growth-oriented strategies like Growth, Private Equity, and Venture Capital have delivered the highest 15-year horizon IRRs and with lower standard deviation than other lower-returning strategies like Real Estate, Infrastructure, and Oil & Gas. We believe these growth areas are better positioned to generate higher IRRs within closed-ended funds given their large opportunity set, accelerated ability to deploy capital, opportunities to drive operational improvements, and ability to generate attractive exit opportunities.
Asset allocation mix is of increasing importance as investors seeking higher return potential within portfolios look to scale up their illiquid allocations. The last decade shows that not all private markets investments are equal. We believe Growth, Private Equity, and Venture Capital are likely to continue to be the most attractive strategies for investors looking to maximize the returns generated from their illiquid allocations. Manager selection also remains a critical investment decision within private markets strategies, where there is typically a wider range of performance dispersion than in more traditional public market asset classes.
The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.
In the spring of 1973, the lyrical geniuses Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of the musical group Steely Dan released the song “Reelin’ In the Years.” The third and fourth lines of the first stanza proclaim:
Well, you wouldn’t even know a diamond if you held it in your hand The things you think are precious I can’t understand
At first glance, the reproving lyrics underscore the disagreement of value between two parties and one’s inability to recognize an object of high value. Arguably, value is subjective as the intersection of what the most pessimistic seller and most optimistic buyer are willing to accept. Fagen and Becker could have been students of economic policy, prophesizing the creation of Bitcoin more than 35 years later and critical of inflation, which would reach 6.2% in 1973 and 11.1% in 1974.¹ While I am hesitant to put Fagen and Becker in the same category as Keynes, Smith, and Friedman, I do believe their words inspire a debate on the meaning of value.
Gold has historically been accepted as an alternative to cash and a hedge against inflation. As expected, inflation has been on the rise this year, with the Consumer Price Index up 4.2% YoY in April, the highest in 12 years.² At the same time, contrary to conventional wisdom, gold has underperformed. Through May 14th, 2021, gold is down 3.4% YTD and up only 2.6% over the past year. Alternatively, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin is up over 50% YTD and over 350% over the past year. While there are a number of different factors behind Bitcoin’s latest rally, its status as “digital gold” may be one of them, with its finite supply and detachment from central bank policy particularly attractive right now.
The discussion around cryptocurrencies and inflation is a complicated one, given the nascency of the asset class and the limited data available given the general lack of inflation over the last several years. Making long-term decisions based on short-term information does not typically lead to beneficial outcomes. With that said, it is often hard to grasp the magnitude of innovation at its earliest stages. As the debate over the value of Bitcoin and the value of gold as an inflation hedge continues, we recommend investors be prudent and diligent in accounting for new data and information while weighing it against past lessons in uncertain periods.
The opinions expressed herein are those of Marquette Associates, Inc. (“Marquette”), and are subject to change without notice. This material is not financial advice or an offer to purchase or sell any product. Marquette reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs.
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