Institutional Investors Still See Losses in Q109

Foundations and endowments saw the best median quarterly returns at -4.78%, with an annual return of -25.71%. The median performance of all master trusts for the year ended March 31, 2009 was -24.71%, with a quarterly return of -5.53%, according to the TUCS data.

The median performance of corporate pension plans was -26% for the year and -6.31% for the quarter, while public pension funds median performance was -25.93% for the year and -5.92% for the first quarter. The quarterly median return for Taft Hartley funds was -5.14%, with the one-year at -22.66%.

Corporate plans with assets of more than $1 billion suffered the worst median performance at -7.09% for the quarter. The one-year median rate of return for these same plans was -25.45%, Wilshire said.

The quarterly median rates of return for all master trusts and public pension plans with assets greater than $5 billion were both -6.57%, with those same public plans reporting median one-year performance of – 27.55% and all master trusts doing somewhat better with a median annual return of -27.20%.

According to the Wilshire TUCS Equity Style Analysis, small cap value stocks had the worst performance for the first quarter of 2009 with a median total return of -15.19%. “The best performance came from mid cap growth managers which reported a median rate of return of -4.39%, followed by large growth managers with a -4.84% median performance,” noted Hilarie C. Green, CFA, managing director and head of Wilshire Analytics’ Performance Reporting division, in the report.

Wilshire TUCS includes nearly 1,200 plans with $2.43 trillion in assets.