Harvard’s Q3 ETF Adjustments (EWZ, EWY, EWW, RSX, FXI, EZA, EEM, EPI, NAL, MFE, IWB, INTC)

Harvard Management Company, the group responsible for oversight of the richest U.S. college endowment, manages a diverse global portfolio that reaches across a variety of asset classes including stocks, bonds, and real estate, as well as alternative investments like private equity and hedge funds. According to the HMC website, the endowment’s investment return in the year ended June 30 was 11%, and its assets were then valued at a whopping $27.6 billion.

A look at Harvard’s recently disclosed top-15 U.S.-listed equity positions from the end of Q3 shows that the firm was making adjustments in a variety of international ETFs in the three months ended September 30. The endowment was adding to positions in the iShares MSCI Brazil Index Fund (EWZ), iShares MSCI-South Korea Index Fund (EWY), iShares MSCI Mexico Index Fund (EWW), and Market Vectors Russia ETF Trust (RSX), while reducing bets on the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index Fund (FXI), iShares MSCI South Africa Index Fund (EZA), iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund (EEM), and WisdomTree India (EPI).

Elsewhere, Harvard was adding new positions in NewAlliance Bancshares (NAL) and the iShares Russell 1000 Index Fund (IWB) in Q3. The endowment also opened a position in IT security firm McAfee (NYSE: MFE), which may have been a merger arbitrage play on the company’s planned buyout by chip giant Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), which was announced in August.

Looking at tickerspy.com’s graph charting the performance of Harvard’s top end-of-Q3 hodlings so far in Q4, one can see that they are ahead of the market. If you want to see how your performance stacks up against Harvard’s or just see some of its other holdings, visit tickerspy.com to see the firm’s top holdings and a chart of their combined performance.

Pro portfolio performance is based on institutions’ top-15 holdings as disclosed in quarter-end filings with the SEC. Pro performance does not take into account additional holdings beyond the top 15 nor does it include positions that are not required to be disclosed by the SEC. As such, Pro portfolio performance should be considered an approximation and not a precise record of how an institution has performed over time.

Tags: EEM, EPI, EWW, EWY, EWZ, EZA, FXI, INTC, IWB, MFE, NAL, RSX