Press

NEPC’s Jake Mallinson was quoted in a recent Pensions & Investments article that covers NEPC’s 2023 Defined Benefit survey to discuss why higher rates and inflation are actually good news for funded status and frozen plans. View the article on Pensions & Investments’ site here.

NEPC’s Jennifer Appel was recently quoted in the Investor’s Business Daily to discuss insights from our Q3 quarterly market webinar, as well as outlook around a potential recession. View the article in it’s entirety on Investor’s Business Daily’s site here.

Watch out Magnificent Seven. There’s a new set of eight S&P 500 stocks taking off in the ongoing eight-day rally.

Eight S&P 500 stocks, including consumer discretionary Expedia Group (EXPE), industrial Generac Holdings (GNRC) and tech play Gartner (IT), rallied 20% or more in the market’s eight-trading-day winning streak kicked off on Oct. 27, says an Investor’s Business Daily analysis of data from S&P Global Market Intelligence and MarketSmith. This solid 6.3% rally pushed the S&P 500 itself back up an impressive 14% for the year.

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Almost as soon as the calendar flipped into November, investors turned more hopeful for next year. “Despite rising interest rates, a recession in the U.S. for 2024 seems unlikely,” said Jennifer Appel, senior investment director at NEPC

NEPC’s Phillip Nelson was recently quoted in the International Business Times to discuss how market conditions over the past two years have created more asset allocation opportunities to hit long-term goals. View the article in it’s entirety on IBT’s site here.

U.S. stocks and bonds staged a strong rally last week as the sentiment changed on Wall Street.

The S&P 500 ended at 4,358, up 4.8 % for the week; the Dow Jones at 34,061, up 4% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq at 13,478, up 5.1%.

Meanwhile, bond prices rose, sending yields tumbling. For instance, the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond ended the week with a yield of 4.456%, a half-basis point below the yield it was trading a couple of weeks ago.

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“Phillip R. Nelson, partner and director of asset allocation at NEPC, recommends a diversification approach to balance risks. “The higher levels of interest rates and the shifts we’ve seen in the last two years give you more asset allocation options to hit your goals in the long term,” he said.”

NEPC’s Allan Martin, one of CIO’s 2023 Knowledge Brokers, was recently quoted in an article to discuss the contribution of international trade and an aging global population to market volatility. View the full article on Chief Investment Officer’s site here.

NEPC’s Sam Pollack was recently featured in FIN News to discuss NEPC’s multi-faceted approach to portfolio management when it comes to incorporating DEI. Excerpts from the article are shown below. View the article in it’s entirety on FIN News’ site here.

Diverse-owned managers provide an important solution, but not the only one, as endowments and foundations implement investment strategies or policies that incorporate diversity, equity or inclusion goals into their portfolio management.

Though many nonprofits pursue DEI goals with a specific target allocation to strategies managed by diverse-owned firms within their investment portfolios, general investment consultant NEPC prefers taking a multi-faceted approach for its nonprofit clients that goes beyond hiring more diverse-owned or diverse-led managers, said Sam Pollack, a partner and senior member of NEPC’s endowment and foundation practice, in an interview.

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““Yes, we look at a given strategy or firm and if it happens to be diverse-owned or diverse-led. But we want to go deeper and look at what the strategy or firm is doing, what resources do they have access to do this, beyond that firm leadership level. That can extend to accountability reviews as far as their hiring, promotion or retention and their procurement policies as well,” he noted.”

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““We jumped into the fray with the launch of our DEI ratings, which was by design for all managers, not treating diverse owned or divers led as own subset. It’s important to take the same look and shine the same light on all managers and help our clients in seeing what they are doing or not doing,” Pollack added.”

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““The idea of a rating is to share more granular information, not simply mark good or bad, but provide the information to make informed investment decisions,” he noted, adding that many nonprofits lack the capacity to collect the necessary information on their own.

Clients care about this, but they don’t know how to get started or how to start the journey, so to speak. It takes a significant investment in time and resources to dig deeper across the many strategies. We really endeavor to take that deep dive and do it, and to cast that wide net, help clients make productive decisions based on information,” Pollack said.”

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““With the deep dive that we are trying to conduct for clients and make informed and nuanced decisions, seeking out diverse-owned and diverse-led firms is just the first step in that process,” he said.”

NEPC’s Bill Ryan and Allan Martin, both featured on CIO’s 2023 Knowledge Brokers list, were recently quoted in an article to discuss what lessons they’ve learned over the course of their careers. View the full article on Chief Investment Officer’s site here.

NEPC’s Sarah Samuels was recently featured in FIN News to discuss her forthcoming Children’s book, Braving Our Savings: Holland and London Learn to Invest. Excerpts from the article are shown below. View the article in it’s entirety on FIN News’ site here.

An institutional investment industry veteran has penned a new children’s book that aims to give children the confidence and access to become financially literate.

NEPC Partner Sarah Samuels came from a non-traditional career path, had no guidance, financial education or family history in the industry and understands that many others come from a similar dynamic. So, the mother of two little girls took matters into her own hands in publishing her first children’s book, Braving Our Savings: Holland and London Learn to Invest, to help change the lives of young kids that do not have control over what is put in front of them.

“Unfortunately, many schools are not teaching any personal finance or a general financial education. What’s not being taught at home and not being taught in school gets left by the wayside. These are some very basic life skills that can empower people to break generations-long cycles of making ends meet,” she said.

The concept and underlying theme of bravery is woven throughout the book, whose target audience is children in the first and second grade, and Samuels started a movement called 30 Seconds of Bravery as she believes that if you can do something that is difficult – whether it’s asking for a raise or promotion or doing something big in your personal life – it will change the path of your life.

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“I’m having some really interesting discussions with different nonprofits across the country and I’ll be raising money at some point. I’ll be looking for ways to get as many copies of the book in kid’s hands as we can,” Samuels said.

A GoFundMe is live for donations to children on the 30 Seconds of Bravery movement website and Samuels is looking for people that are willing to provide ideas in order to “amplify the message and get involved.”

“This is a wonderful industry and it should be available to all. Everyone deserves to have [the] type of career path that I was lucky enough to have, but they need our help,” Samuels said.

Braving Our Savings has a target publication date of April 16, which falls during Financial Literacy Month and will be published by Forefront Books, which caters to successful men and women in their respective fields, of publisher Simon & Schuster.

NEPC’s Joshua Beers recently wrote an article for Financial Planning that discusses artificial intelligence and the impact it’s having on the private equity space. View the article on FinancialPlanning’s site here.

NEPC’s James Reichert, Senior Director of Portfolio Strategy, sat down with The Wall Street Journal to discuss whether alternative investments have fallen out of favor for corporate pensions. James suggests that in today’s inflationary environment, plans may find it more advantageous to invest in publicly traded investment-grade, high-yield bonds and bank loans, without the added complexity and uncertainty of alternative assets. View the article on The Wall Street Journal’s site here.