[ropiku]

From the article "1 and 3 years returns are mostly noise". He focuses on a longer term since it's a much better comparison. On a growing market it's much easier to overperform the index but then get wiped when a crash happens.

[dzdt]

For the endowments, the 1y and 3y returns didn't look like noise. Hiding the noisy data is hiding the fact that the ETF strategy is more risky than the endowments.

[ropiku]

What do you mean ? The shorter term you look the more noise there is. I'm not sure that it's exactly the same 1y period, you are just averaging out a lot of funds. I would say the fact that ETFs overperformed on a long term means they are less risky not more.