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Topic: Risk Management
Investment Committees: Preparing for the Unforeseen
In the world of investing, crises are inevitable. Yet, many investment committees find themselves unprepared when these crises strike because they haven’t taken the necessary time to scenario plan....
Viewpoint | Top Concerns for Private Foundations: Financial Volatility and Target Returns
In this year’s Council on Foundations–Commonfund Study of Investment of Endowments for Private and Community Foundations® (CCSF; the “Study”) we asked a new question: What are the top two current...
Commonfund on the Road: Insights from our California Roundtables
For over 50 years, Commonfund has been working with boards and committee members helping endowments and foundations to sustain their missions over many generations and promoting best practices in...
Viewpoint | The Yin and Yang of Risk and Return
The conundrum of risk and return is that you can’t have one without the other. The key is finding the right balance for your foundation.
Time to Reassess Your Cash Strategy
Bank safety amidst a confidence crisis It’s not hard to find sore spots in the economy. High rates of inflation have hit pocketbooks and balance sheets and initiated the steepest interest rate hikes...
Including Risk Management in Your Investment Policy Statement – Where to Begin
Investment policy statements usually contain a section that purports to define the institution’s risk tolerance. But they frequently only gesture in the direction of risk, without actually examining...
Excellent Boards Are Made, Not Born
Boards that are exemplary for their adherence to best governance practices have certain identifiable traits. But this is no accident—they have taken steps to elevate their practices and maintain them...
Four Hot Topics of Operational Support
Middle and back office operational support is often considered the glue that keeps organizations on track. While perhaps not the most glamorous of topics, the oversight of accounting, tax reporting,...
Asset Allocation and Risk - Commonfund Coffee Talk
ASSET ALLOCATION AND RISK | LOOKING BEYOND VOLATILITY Our second Coffee Talk focused on asset allocation and risk, and the key factors and inputs that maximize the likelihood of achieving...
A Financial Framework for the COVID Crisis
Despite the fall semester looking much better than the worst-case scenarios contemplated in early summer, higher education in America continues to grapple with the enormous challenges that the...
Balancing Risk and Return
Risk surrounds us, and for investment fiduciaries it is inescapable if meaningful real returns are to be sought. While risk and return constitute the axes upon which investment portfolios are built,...
Tactical Allocation: Winning Strategy or a Fool’s Game?
Institutional investors overseeing long-term pools of capital typically define their strategic asset allocation with specific targets and bands or ranges around those targets, which allow for...
Risk Management and Operations: 5 Takeaways from Commonfund Forum 2019
The majority of investors’ attention is often focused on the performance of the funds or managers in their portfolio. And rightfully so. The numbers that appear on statements month after month will...
Equity Portfolio Construction – Through a Risk Factor Lens
At Commonfund, we aim to build multi-manager, active risk equity portfolios with a clear objective of consistent outperformance versus passive policy benchmarks. Our approach is to take intentional...
Assessing your Board's Risk Tolerance
To provide a deeper understanding of what board and investment committee members can do to improve their ability to assess risk tolerance, Commonfund has prepared a white paper discussing lessons...
Striking the Balance: A Fiduciary Approach to Risk and Investment Policy
Discover how to effectively balance risk and return as a fiduciary in your investment portfolios.
When Leaks Turn into Floods: Challenges Facing Higher Education
2017’s tax legislation is the latest in a growing list of challenges facing higher education. The new excise taxes on endowment earnings of the largest private universities, coupled with the...
On Complacency | Why Risk Management Always Matters
Like nearly everything in the financial markets, risk is cyclical. History repeats itself. The echoes of past crises are always heard in present ones, yet new crises are rarely predicted and not...
How Much Beta is in Your Equity Portfolio?
Leveling the Field in the “Tug of War” Between Active and Passive… Active Equity Manager Universal Objective: Outperform the Passive Alternative It’s undeniable that every active equity manager’s...
WannaCry? WannaRun, WannaHide! Managing Cybersecurity Risk
Over the last year there has been no shortage of things to keep investors, asset managers, and risk managers concerned. Despite these exogenous shocks most equity markets have continued to shake off...
The Misperception of Illiquid Investments
With many market participants expecting low nominal returns across traditional asset classes in the coming years, the challenge of structuring a portfolio to achieve CPI +5%, or long-term purchasing...
What do the Cable Television and Hedge Fund Industries Have in Common?
These industries may seem an odd pairing, but both are in the midst of a disruption-led, industry-wide rationalization process. The two industries share in common a historically evolved “bundling”...
Top Ten Risks for Practicing CIOs
A Chief Investment Officer’s primary responsibility is to identify and clearly communicate his/her portfolio’s risks to his/her Board, Investment Committee and/or client(s). About eighteen months...
Operating Charity Implements a Risk-Based Investment Policy
An operating charity in the Northeast is in the process of implementing a risk-based investment policy for its $30 million endowment. The organization’s seven-member Investment Committee includes...
Is Currency an Asset Class?
Currency risk can best be described as the surprise impact that currency exposure has on an investment portfolio. Although currency risk typically confounds investors, it is easy to measure – it is...
Defining Risk For Your Organization
Merriam-Webster’s defines risk as the “possibility of loss or injury.” The financial profession — borrowing from Modern Portfolio Theory — uses the standard deviation of a portfolio’s returns to...
Greenhouse Effect
Investment returns of less well-diversified portfolios have flourished in the accommodative market environment created by central banks. But what will happen when rates rise? In the last five years,...
Risk: The Fuel that Generates Portfolio Returns
Risk management: the process of harnessing risk in pursuit of better investment returns In a broad sense, how should nonprofit institutional investors think about investment risk and risk management?...