The university with the highest total endowment suffered along with the market. It would be an obvious statement to say that Harvard suffered along with the rest of the market. Of course, they did better than the biggest losers. One could always say they could have done worse and put all their money in Citi.
I have to admit that I have no clue whether the endowment funds did better or worse than an index fund tracking the stock market but I imagine if one has $30B to invest (and you depend on dividends to run a third of one's operations) then surely you can't admit to be completely risk averse without reducing ambitions.
> In a sign of the economic times, Harvard has sent a letter to its deans saying that the university’s $36.9 billion endowment fund lost 22 percent of its value in the last four months and could decline as much as 30 percent by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.
I have to admit that I have no clue whether the endowment funds did better or worse than an index fund tracking the stock market but I imagine if one has $30B to invest (and you depend on dividends to run a third of one's operations) then surely you can't admit to be completely risk averse without reducing ambitions.
> In a sign of the economic times, Harvard has sent a letter to its deans saying that the university’s $36.9 billion endowment fund lost 22 percent of its value in the last four months and could decline as much as 30 percent by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/business/04harvard.html