Markets

The Pandemic Economy: Which Stocks are Weathering the Storm?

Published

3 years ago

March 13, 2020

Jeff Desjardins

The Pandemic Economy: The Stocks Weathering the Storm

When markets get wacky, even the best companies can’t avoid the maelstrom.

Investors were already tiptoeing on broken glass, knowing that the longest U.S. stock market bull run in history was getting long in the tooth.

Then, when the market foresaw the potential damage that could be caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it quickly created a vortex that would suck almost everything into it.

Bizarro Market

In the last week, markets flipped into an alternate universe. Every major stock got crushed, while suddenly those holding onto stockpiles of toilet paper and soup reigned supreme.

In such unique circumstances, we wondered which companies were weathering the storm of volatility. To do this, we used Finviz to pull up a visualization of S&P 500 performance, then investigating the segments of the market that were doing well in spite of the recent plunge.

Stock selection	Performance (Mar 5-12)	Components
S&P 500	-18.0% 📉	The 500 largest U.S. companies by market cap
The Pandemic Economy	+12.7% 📈	Soup, bleach, pizza, and telecommuting stocks

A few companies not only avoided the chaos — they actually thrived over the last week.

Let’s look at why!

Not Getting Bugged Down

With global travel, events, and social gatherings screeching to a halt, it’s obvious that this is not a winning situation for any typical economy.

However, it’s hard for everyone to simultaneously be a loser, and it’s always inevitable that some stocks will benefit from any crisis — or at least not get hit as hard as their peers.

Zoom Video Communications (ZM)
There’s no doubt a pandemic is tough on brick-and-mortar companies, but for most white collar workers the show must go on. As a pure play stock in the video conferencing category, Zoom is uniquely positioned as companies shift to more remote work.
Domino’s Pizza (DPZ)
With people wanting to avoid crowds because of COVID-19, it’s natural to want to order in. Domino’s, as well as other companies that focus on food delivery, stand to benefit in the short term from the virus.
Campbell Soup Company (CPB)
Campbell is the quintessential counter-cyclical stock, and even more so in a prepping environment. When the global outlook is gloomy, people want to stockpile — and soup is a major pantry staple.
Teladoc Health, Inc. (TDOC)
If sitting in a doctor’s office with dozens of other sick people can be avoided, it seems it would be regarded as a prudent decision. For this reason, remote health services are an obvious focus for investors during the pandemic.
The Clorox Company (CLX)
Wash your hands. Wash your hands. Have you heard that you should wash your hands to avoid the spread of the coronavirus? Clorox benefits from this sudden interest in sanitation and cleanliness.
Everbridge, Inc. (EVBG)
When times are uncertain, global decision-makers want to get as much quality information as possible. Everbridge offers a risk intelligence platform that provides this service.
Virtu Financial, Inc. (VIRT)
Whether markets are going up or down, large amounts of volume and volatility are a good thing for financial services companies that make money from high frequency trading.

Not all of these companies are in the green — some have simply traded sideways — but on average, they’ve seen a 12.7% bump in price over the last week.

Whether that will last in a fast-changing news environment is another story.

Related Topics:stocks markets pandemic covid-19 countercyclical

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Money

Ranked: The World’s Top 50 Endowment Funds

Endowment funds represent the investment arms of nonprofits. See the worlds top 50, which collectively have over $1 trillion in assets.

Published

3 hours ago

May 16, 2023

Aran Ali

Ranked: The World’s Top 50 Endowment Funds

What do Harvard, the Church Commissioners for England, the NYC Metropolitan Museum of Art, and an entity on behalf of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah all have in common? They all have endowment funds.

An endowment fund is the investment arm of nonprofit institutions like universities, charities, and churches. The purpose of the fund is to invest the organization’s assets to fuel future operations and other important projects.

The world’s largest endowment funds have billions in investable assets, making them sizable players in the finance sector. Here, using data from Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, we take a closer look at the world’s largest endowment funds by total assets.

Types of Endowment Funds

Overall, there are four main types of endowment structures.

Unrestricted Endowment: A fund structure where assets are used at the full discretion of the institution
Term Endowment: A fund structure with a fixed term time period before the principal can be spent
Quasi Endowment: A donation to an endowment with a specific purpose to deploy that capital
Restricted Endowment: A fund structure where the principal value from donations is held forever and only returns generated on the principal can be used

In addition, each endowment fund has different structures in regards to withdrawals, use of funds, and their general investment philosophy.

The Largest Endowment Funds

The largest endowment funds can be compared on a grand economic scale, in terms of assets.

To put it all into perspective, the largest 50 endowment funds represent over a trillion dollars in assets. Or for a more singular example, look at Harvard’s fund, which has an endowment greater than the entire GDP of countries like Serbia, Bolivia, or Slovenia.

Here’s how the top 50 rank.

Rank	Endowment Fund	Total Assets	Region
1	Ensign Peak Advisors, Inc	$124,000,000,000	North America
2	Japan Science and Technology Agency	$80,700,000,000	Asia
3	Stanford University	$75,143,751,000	North America
4	Harvard Management Company	$72,781,329,000	North America
5	Yale University	$56,223,259,000	North America
6	Princeton University	$44,460,038,000	North America
7	MIT Investment Management Company	$42,526,492,000	North America
8	Duke University	$30,385,835,000	North America
9	New York University	$27,840,535,000	North America
10	Columbia University in the City of New York	$24,698,782,000	North America
11	University of Notre Dame	$24,599,541,000	North America
12	KAUST Investment Management Company	$23,500,000,000	Middle East
13	Emory University	$20,458,905,000	North America
14	Johns Hopkins University	$18,037,751,000	North America
15	Church Pension Fund	$17,773,649,171	North America
16	University of Chicago	$17,276,136,000	North America
17	Ohio State University	$16,006,851,000	North America
18	Northwestern University	$15,855,683,000	North America
19	Washington University in St Louis	$15,103,569,000	North America
20	Penn State University, Office of Investment Management	$15,017,272,000	North America
21	Notre Dame of Maryland University	$14,938,580,253	North America
22	Cornell University	$14,850,618,000	North America
23	University of Southern California	$14,495,427,000	North America
24	Vanderbilt University	$13,883,495,000	North America
25	University of Virginia Investment Management Compnay	$13,811,076,000	North America
26	University of Tokyo	$13,285,270,000	Asia
27	National University of Singapore	$12,626,100,000	Asia
28	UNC Management Company	$11,986,857,000	North America
29	University of Michigan Office of Investments	$11,900,000,000	North America
30	General Authority of Awqaf	$11,238,371,192	Middle East
31	Church Commissioners for England	$11,197,700,000	Europe
32	J.Paul Getty Trust	$10,778,927,000	North America
33	Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church	$9,932,419,000	North America
34	Unitersity of Utah	$9,827,602,000	North America
35	Brown University	$9,793,108,000	North America
36	Kamehameha Schools	$9,326,013,000	North America
37	Dartmouth College	$9,078,340,000	North America
38	Hong Kong Jockey Club	$8,603,580,000	Asia
39	Rice University	$8,424,555,000	North America
40	The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust	$8,313,588,000	North America
41	University of Pittsburgh	$8,011,856,000	North America
42	Nature Conservancy	$7,870,380,000	North America
43	University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation	$7,329,730,000	North America
44	University of Rochester	$7,149,025,000	North America
45	Virginia Commonwealth University	$6,985,495,306	North America
46	Purdue University	$6,755,500,000	North America
47	University of Miami	$6,582,600,000	North America
48	University of Minnesota	$6,304,508,000	North America
49	Caltech Investment Office	$6,252,584,000	North America
50	Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City	$5,588,554,000	North America

The largest endowment fund, Ensign Peak Advisors, is based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and manages the assets for the Mormon Church (officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). The church itself has over 16 million members worldwide and is the fourth largest church in America.

The Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) is a national research and development agency that plays a core role in promoting technology, innovation, and science within society. In 1995, Japan’s government passed the Science and Technology Basic Plan and the JST came to life and now has over $80 billion in assets as well as offices in Paris, Washington, Singapore, and Beijing.

Just two funds come from the Middle East. The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) with $23.5 billion and the General Authority of Awqaf. KAUST is ranked 95th amongst universities in the world and made history in the country by being Saudi Arabia’s first mixed-gender university.

The General Authority of Awqaf has $11 billion in assets and was established as a public authority to manage endowments and enhance Saudi Arabia’s various goals for societal development. “Awqaf” in Arabic loosely translates to assets that are donated or purchased for general or specific charitable causes that are socially beneficial.

On the environmental side is the Nature Conservancy, which has $7.8 billion in assets. The charity is estimated to have protected more than 100 million acres of land.

American Universities Dominate

Universities are one leading category from the world of endowment funds, particularly those from the United States. In fact, universities make up 39 of the top 50 endowment funds, with 35 of them based in America.

Historically, Harvard has been the largest, but Stanford has edged ahead in recent years. Stanford has $75 billion in assets compared to Harvard’s $73 billion. These vast amounts of money have not gone unnoticed, and elite universities are facing mounting criticism in some circles.

“When Harvard’s total admitted freshman class is 1,400 people—and they have an endowment that is the GDP of El Salvador—they’re not a nonprofit, they’re a hedge fund educating the children of their investors.” – Professor Scott Galloway

With student debt rising to $1.6 trillion, it’s likely these universities may face greater criticism around how they use the wealth available to them in endowment funds.

Sizable Influence

The top endowment funds carry considerable influence within the world of finance. While they all have billions to invest, each has very different objectives and intentions on how to deploy their capital.

And despite being non-profit organizations, endowment funds are seeing their overall assets exceed those held by many other investment funds, such as sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, and private equity firms.