Lauren Buffett is a consultant for several college endowment funds. She has accumulated performance figures from a number of university endowments, as well as information about the typical stocks/bonds/cash mixtures common in the endowment universe. A firm believer in the broad policy approach, she makes recommendations about allocations across asset classes rather than which managers to choose or which stocks to pick.

City College is a community college with a $100 million endowment. Since its establishment, it has had a fixed investment policy of 65% stocks (spread 30/20/15 amongst large, medium and small cap stock portfolio, labeled LRGSTK, MEDSTK and SMLSTK, respectively), 20% Corporate Bonds (CBOND), and 15% Government Bonds (GBOND) over the years 1995 2012. The monthly returns on these asset classes are listed in the Excel spreadsheet titled PROJECT.xlsx. The spreadsheet also includes returns on three additional asset classes: Real Estate (REITs), International Stocks (EAFE), and Precious Metals (PM). In addition, it provides the monthly returns on the value-weighted market portfolio (VWRET), the S&P 500 Index (SPRET), and the one-month U.S. Treasury bills (TBILL).

Due to declining student enrollment, City College has been relying more and more heavily on its endowment to meet budgets need in the past several years. Sue Herrera, the chairperson of the endowment committee for the board of trustees of City College, decided to review the endowments historical performance. She found out about Ms. Buffett from a friend who serves on the board of a well-known public university. The public university had hired Buffett in 2010 to review its investment policy and found her advice very helpful.

Herrera decided to seek for Buffetts advice on whether City College should consider a change in its long-standing investment policy. In particular, Herrera was concerned about the economic outlook for small colleges like City College. She anticipated stronger needs to rely on the endowment fund in the coming years. She also felt that a return of 1% per month represented a floor below which the portfolio return should not drop. She wanted Lauren Buffett to suggest an efficient asset allocation to achieve this goal.

Based on her conversation with Herrera, Buffett has drawn up a list of issues that need to be addressed. She has decided to hire your group for this task. You are invited to address the following questions. In your analysis, assume that short sales are allowed (except when explicitly ruled out) and borrowing at the risk-free rate is possible.

1. Assume that the monthly asset allocation remained the same over the 1995-2012 period. How well did the City Colleges portfolio (with its current asset allocation) perform over the 19952012 period? Provide performance statistics (including the Sharpe ratio). Compare these statistics with those of the value-weighted market portfolio (VWRETD) and the S&P500 index over the same period.