Q2 Bleak in BNY Mellon Master Trust Arena

A BNY Mellon news release said that was more than eight percentage points lower than last quarter, and ended a run of four consecutive quarters of positive performance.  Year to date, the median plan returned -1.35%, but for the twelve-months ended June 30, 2010 the median return was 13.23%.

According to the news release, highlights of the latest data included that:

• Only 7% of plans posted positive results for the three-month period ending June 30, 2010.  On a year-to-date basis, 27% of plans saw positive returns.
• Despite the negative performance, 97% of the plans matched or outperformed the universe custom policy return of -8.08 in the second quarter.  For the year-to-date period, 94% of the plans outperformed the policy, which was down 3.9%.
• Health care plans were the top performing plan type for the second quarter with a -3.4% median return, followed by endowments, foundations, corporate pensions, Taft-Hartley and public plans.   
• U.S. fixed income led all asset classes for the quarter with a median return of 3.25%, versus the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index return of 3.49%.  Non-U.S. fixed income posted a median return of -0.72%, ahead of the Citigroup Non-U.S. World Government Bond Index return of -1.26%.  U.S. equities posted a median return of -11.02%, compared to the Russell 3000 Index return of -11.32%. Non-U.S. equities returned -11.87%, outperforming the MSCI World ex USA Index return of -13.41%.  

BNY Mellon said that the average asset allocation for the second quarter was: U.S. equity 31%, U.S. fixed income 31%, non-U.S. equity 15%, non-U.S. fixed income 2%, alternative investments 10%, real estate 2%, cash 1%, and other (oil, gas, etc.) 8%.

With a market value of $1.05 trillion and an average plan size of $1.49 billion, the BNY Mellon U.S. Master Trust Universe consists of 701 corporate, foundation, endowment, public, Taft-Hartley and health care plans.