What Average Really Looks Like — and Can Managed Futures Help?
Money For the Rest of Us
J. David Stein
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How historical and expected returns for university endowments can guide us in setting reasonable return expectations. We also analyze managed futures strategies to see how they work, how they have performed, and how to use them in your investment portfolio.
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Show Notes
2025 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments (NCSE) Results—NACUBO
Princeton University cuts expectation for endowment returns by Sun Yu—The Financial Times
Demystifying Managed Futures by Brian K. Hurst, Yao Hua Ooi, and Lasse H. Pedersen—AQR
Investments Mentioned
AQR Managed Futures Strategy Fund I (AQMIX)
iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF (DBMF)
KraneShares Mount Lucas Managed Futures Index Strategy ETF (KMLM)
WisdomTree Managed Futures Strategy Fund (WTMF)
First Trust Managed Futures Strategy Fund (FMF)
Return Stacked US Stocks & Managed Futures ETF (RSST)
Related Episodes
524: Facing a Financial Squeeze: What Harvard’s Response Can Teach the Rest of Us
204: Why Are Investment Returns So Low?
180: Can You Outperform Harvard’s Endowment?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In this episode of Money for the Rest of Us, we take a look at a strategy that actually added value in 2022. |
| 0:07.6 | In some cases, 30% plus returns in a time when the stock market fell off, when bonds sold off. |
| 0:13.8 | It's called Managed Futures in the second part of the podcast. |
| 0:16.9 | We take a deep dive into how they work and how you could use them in your portfolio. |
| 0:21.1 | In the first part of the podcast, we take a look at why university endowment returns have |
| 0:25.3 | been essentially subpar over the past 20 to 25 years. I hope you'll stick around. Listen to this |
| 0:32.5 | episode, 551. And also, if you find it helpful, please share this episode with your friends and family. |
| 0:39.9 | Just text it to them and share the word about money for the rest of us. Now, on to the episode. |
| 0:45.7 | Welcome to Money for the Rest of us. This is a personal finance show on money, how it works, |
| 0:50.6 | how to invest it, and how to live without worrying about it. I'm your host, |
| 0:54.8 | David Stein. Today is episode 551. It's titled, What Average Really Looks Like and Can Managed |
| 1:02.1 | Futures Help? This month, February 26, the 2025 NACUBO Common Fund Study of Endowment was released. This is a compilation of hundreds and hundreds |
| 1:16.6 | of university endowments in the U.S. as they report their investment performance, their asset |
| 1:23.5 | allocation, their spending rate, and lots of other data as it relates to managing |
| 1:28.9 | these investment portfolios that help fund university operations. |
| 1:34.9 | I always looked forward to that study when I was an institutional investment advisor, |
| 1:41.3 | a consultant, as I had a number of university clients, including Texas A&M, |
| 1:46.9 | University, University of Puget Sound, for a while, Texas Tech, and others. And so I looked at this |
| 1:53.5 | study. And this is what stood out to me. Performance, pretty ho-hum. If we go back 25 25 years so this study ends June 2025 we'll go back to June |
| 2:06.5 | 2000 and look at the 25 year annualized return for the average university endowment i mean some did |
| 2:14.1 | worse some of course did better the, 6.6% annualized. |
| 2:20.3 | For the 20-year period, so from June 2005 through June 2025, 7.3% annualized. |
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