'Endowment chief enjoys flexibility offered by ETFs'

After a yearlong portfolio review of the endowment, chief investment officer and alumnus of the College of the Holy Cross Timothy Jarry ’00, explains the flexibility offered by exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in a recent article by Pensions & Investments.

“We use ETFs mainly for rebalancing the long-only equity portfolio allocation, specifically across U.S., developed and emerging markets. Additionally, when we take in cash from gifts or from a fund distribution, and the endowment doesn't have to make a payout, we'll equitize it through the liquidity portfolio. It really serves two purposes and, with the ease of implementation, allows us to spend our time evaluating managers and policies that can have a greater impact on the bottom line. ETFs help us to run a more concentrated portfolio of our best ideas, while enabling us to allocate our time to areas of the portfolio where we can add more value,” said Jarry.

Jarry also added other ways in which the ETFs have increased the endowment’s flexibility: “The ETF portfolio can be particularly useful in putting cash to work during a capital campaign or any time gifts come in. It allows us to maintain some extra capacity for our active managers when there is space available.”

This “Holy Cross in the News” item is by Jacqueline Smith ’15.