Mortgage Blog

A Yale Story about the investment

December 5th, 2017 10:04 PM by Eric Fang

Here is the story told by Robert Shiller:

Joe McNay, I think he was a Yale graduate.
 
The class of 1954 was celebrating the 25th anniversary of
 
their graduation, that would be in 1979.
 
And somebody said, this guy, Joe McNay is a great investor.
 
Why don't we, as a class, give money to Joe McNay, and just ask
 
him to invest it for 25 years, and turn it over to Yale University as our gift.
 

But we don't turn it over now, because apparently they thought that
 
the Yale portfolio was not managed well at all.
 
And so this is before David Swenson became the head of the Yale portfolio.
 
So Yale was investing in government bonds and safe things like that.
 
They couldn't stomach the variation that you see in investments.
 
But Joe McNay was just this creative guy.
 
And they said hey, you know, this is just our celebration for our 25th anniversary.
 
We don't care about this 370,000.
 
We want you to invest it for maximum returns, and you can take chances.
 
We're in the mood.
 
Hey we're all having our beers together 25 years later.
 
It's It isn't often that investors will tell that to an investment manager.
 
So, right?
 
You don't say, if you lose all of it, well, okay.
 
We don't care.
 
But we think you can do it so please try.
 
So, Joe McNay invested it in Walmart Home Depot and some Internet stocks.
 
So, he took Walmart, it's like an Apple corporation, really volatile.
 
He thought, well they've told me I could do this.
 
And so he gave to Yale University $90 million, quite a success.
 

And here is the Bio of this guy, Joseph McNay
Posted in:General
Posted by Eric Fang on December 5th, 2017 10:04 PM

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