Recently the writer read the book Outperform – Inside the Investment Strategy of Billion Dollar Endowments by John Baschab and Jon Piot, John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2010. The book examines what lessons can be learnt from the people who manage the funds at the larger educational institutions.

Many of the institutions use a macro approach with emphasis on emerging trends. If you regularly read or listen to the news, you should be able to identify the emerging trends. The secret is how do you profit from knowing about the trends? The are many strategies you can use but an easy one is to park the money you were considering investing in the trend into an ETF or Exchange Traded Fund that is related to the trend.. ETFs track an index and now there are many to choose from. There are two good reasons for this strategy – one the fees are low and two as time goes by you do more research into how to play the area, you can determine what kind of returns you are expecting to make. For many institutions this process takes months before they determine which investment councillor to use. The two elements to learn from university endowments are keep your investment fees as low as possible and two take your time before you make a decision and once you do monitor the results.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions