Pimco’s Gross Questions Investments of Harvard, Yale Endowments - Bloomberg
Bill Gross, the co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., said endowments managed by Yale University and Harvard University may have to cut their investments in hedge funds and other hard-to-sell assets because their risks outweigh the possible rewards.
“The Yale and Harvard portfolios, which have succeeded enormously over the past 10 or 20 years in terms of the emphasis on illiquidity and private investments and risk-taking -- you have to question that model,” Gross said today at an industry conference in Chicago.....“Everything in this ‘new normal’ world should be questioned in terms of the returns going forward,” Gross said today.....
Mortgage Delinquency Reaches Record High - Washington Post
Rising unemployment levels helped push record numbers of homeowners into delinquency or foreclosure during the first quarter, according to industry data released yesterday.
Government efforts to cut foreclosure rates have not been enough to offset the impact of the recession on struggling borrowers, the data from the Mortgage Bankers Association showed. And borrowers once considered reliable are now helping drive the foreclosure crisis, which looks likely to extend into next year.
About 12.07 percent of mortgage loans were delinquent or in the foreclosure process during the quarter, according to a survey by the industry group.....
Birinyi Expects Less Broad-Based Gains for Stocks Through 2011 - Bloomberg
U.S. stocks will rally “for another couple of years” while producing gains that will be less broad- based than in the rebound since March, Laszlo Birinyi said.
“We like the fact that there are so many people who are negative or fighting the rally, if you will,” Birinyi said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio. “It’s going to be more difficult” to make money than in the past three months, when “almost everything went up to some degree.”....
Temasek Lost Half Of Five-Year Gains In Eight Mos - Wall Street Journal
Singapore's state-owned investment company Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd. lost S$58 billion from the end of March 2008 to November 2008, or a little over than half of its portfolio value gains from the previous five years, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam disclosed Thursday.
Tharman, speaking in parliament, said Temasek's investment portfolio grew by S$114 billion during the market cycle from 2003 to 2007.
Temasek's portfolio value fall from March to November 2008 was in large part due to the decline in value of investments in Singapore amid a sharp downturn in all global equity markets, he said. He didn't disclose the fund's losses from the recent sale of its holdings in Bank of America Corp. (BAC)
"Of the S$58 billion decline, S$32 billion was attributable to the drop in market value of just the 10 largest publicly listed Temasek-linked companies in Singapore," Tharman said.....
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