Skip to content

David Swensen Quotes

1954–2021 United States

David Frederick Swensen (January 26, 1954 – May 5, 2021) was an American endowment fund manager, who was chief investment officer at Yale University from 1985 until his death in May 2021.

United States
Businesspeople
Deaths

Also known as: David F. Swensen

Random David Swensen quote

22 quotes

Failure to achieve investment goals defines portfolio risk in the most fundamental way.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

Value investors seek to purchase companies at a discount to fair value, not to purchase low growth or distressed assets 'per se.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

When relying on historical data, after a bull market run, asset classes appear most attractive just when future prospects prove bleakest.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

Mean-reverting behavior in security prices implies that periods of abnormally high returns follow periods of abnormally low returns, and vice versa.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

This valuation-based technique worked well until 1958, when stock yields last exceeded bond yields.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

True diversification requires owning assets that respond differently to fundamental forces that drive markets.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

The fundamental purpose of rebalancing lies in controlling risk, not enhancing return.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

Successful investors articulate coherent investment philosophies, consistently applied to all aspects of the portfolio management process.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

Investment returns stem from decisions regarding three tools of portfolio management: asset allocation, market timing, and security selection.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

Typical institutional asset classes include domestic equities, foreign equities, fixed income, absolute return, real assets, and private equities.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

When foolish clients of high quality managers destroy value by responding perversely to past performance, the already tough case for active management becomes tougher still.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

Market timing consists of short-run deviation from the long-term policy targets.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

So, if security selection and market timing are negative-sum games, then asset allocation would explain more than 100% of the returns.

Lecture at Yale University (2011)

Intelligent acceptance of illiquidity, and a value orientation, constitutes a sensible, conservative approach to portfolio management.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

Investors prize liquidity because it allows trading in and out of securities. Unfortunately, liquidity tends to evaporate when most needed.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

In the least efficient private markets, no passive alternative exists. Even were a passive alternative available, market-like results would likely disappoint.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

if you’ve got a long time horizon, you should be rewarded by accepting equity risks.

Lecture at Yale University (2011)

By choosing to place asset allocation at the center of the investment process, investors ground the decision-making framework on the stable foundation of long-term policy actions.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

The authors note that “[o]n average, policy accounted for a little more than all of total return,” implying that security selection and market timing make no material contribution to returns.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

In desiring to supply a stable flow of operating income, hoping to exist forever and wishing to comply with minimum IRS distribution requirements, foundation fiduciaries face a fundamentally conflicting set of goals.

Pioneering Portfolio Management (2009)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: David Swensen (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.