The BNY Mellon U.S. Master Trust Universe returned a median 2.5% in the first quarter, its fourth consecutive positive quarterly performance, BNY Mellon reported this week.
The U.S. Master Trust Universe, which offers peer comparisons of performance by plan type and size, consists of 489 corporate, foundation, endowment, public, Taft-Hartley and health care plans with a total market value of some $2.4 trillion and an average plan size of over $8 billion.
In aggregate, its plans reported a one-year return of 30.2%, exceeding the three-year annualized return of 9.7% and the five-year annualized return of 10%.
For the third quarter in a row, endowments were the highest-performing plan type, benefiting from having a lower fixed-income allocation than any plan type. Corporate plans, in contrast, continued to underperform other plan types because of higher allocations to fixed-income investments.
On average, endowments allocated 11% of assets to fixed income, compared with a 48% allocation by corporate plans and a 30% allocation by the average plan in the Master Trust Universe.
