The mission of Y Retirement is to partner with YMCAs to help those who serve others build a foundation for financial security in retirement. With a focus on long-term investing and portfolio diversification, Y Retirement is equipped to endure short-term market fluctuations. In times of market volatility, the Fund assumes the investment risk, not you.

Since Y Retirement’s inception in 1922, account balances have never gone down. To maximize returns and minimize risk for Y employees, Y Retirement manages its portfolio according to its long-term investment policy and objectives.

Investment Objectives

Y Retirement has two primary investment objectives. Y Retirement aspires to:

1. Grow its diversified portfolio of assets to maximize risk adjusted returns.
2. Align the assets and their risk profile in a manner that is consistent with Y Retirement’s goals of increasing participant account balances and delivering lifetime income for retirees.

Highly Skilled Staff

The money contributed to the Retirement Plan, Savings Plan, and the interest credits, are invested at the direction of the Board in accordance with its investment policy as implemented by Retirement Fund Management. Y Retirement employs a highly skilled and experienced investment staff. Read more about them.

Investment Diversification, Risk Management and Performance

Y Retirement’s Board adopts a long-term asset allocation that provides for diversification of assets to earn sufficient long-term investment returns in a risk-controlled manner. Y Retirement diversifies its portfolio across all major investment categories including equities (public equity and private equity), fixed income (credit and rates), real assets (real estate and natural resources) and hedge fund strategies. Each investment category provides a distinct and purposeful role within Y Retirement’s overall portfolio.

Major Investment Categories
Equities

This category consists of public and private equities across developed and emerging markets. Managers might pursue long-short strategies, seeking stocks that they expect to outperform the market over time while taking short positions in assets they expect will underperform or long-only strategies. Historically, equities have been a main contributor to the portfolio’s returns but with correspondingly higher risk of volatility.

Fixed Income

This category consists of investments in the asset classes of credit and rates. Credit investments may include senior secured loans, high yield corporate bonds, securitized products, and distressed corporate bonds. Rates include investments in long duration U.S. Treasuries which are intended to be a source of defensiveness and liquidity.

Real Assets

Consisting of real estate and natural resources investments, this category may target public or private strategies and securities. Real assets serve to provide a measure of inflation sensitivity to the portfolio. While real assets may be a source of increased volatility, such volatility has not historically been directly correlated with the volatility of the public and private equity asset classes.

Diversifying/Hedge Fund Strategies

This category consists of public and private investments and is designed to generate acceptable absolute returns while having little or no correlation to equity or high-grade bonds. The major types of strategies include various relative value and arbitrage strategies, global macro and illiquid strategies.

Cash and Cash Equivalents

In addition to U.S. dollars, this asset class consists of highly-liquid money market funds.

The Board also sets long-term target allocations, as a percentage of the overall portfolio, for the various asset classes underlying the major investment categories, that are designed to meet Y Retirement’s long-term investment objectives, and establishes a band of minimum and maximum ranges surrounding each target allocation. The asset allocation, targets and ranges are reviewed annually to assess their continuing appropriateness based on periodic asset allocation reviews and asset-liability studies as well as Y Retirement’s stated objectives.

In addition to asset class diversification, Y Retirement further diversifies its portfolio among other dimensions, including but not limited to, geographies, sectors, market capitalization and investment styles.

As part of Y Retirement’s risk management framework, the portfolio is closely monitored by Y Retirement Management and Trustees to ensure proper measurement, monitoring and managing of the risks across the portfolio and within each asset class. Ongoing monitoring of Y Retirement’s investment managers is also conducted to ensure they continue to meet our expectations.

Y Retirement’s investment strategy is designed to deliver a well-balanced and globally diversified portfolio with an objective to provide sustained long-term returns without incurring undue risk. As long-term investors, we do not change our strategy or investment approach based on short-term fluctuations in performance. The table below shows Y Retirement’s performance over various time periods ending as of June 30, 2023, as compared to the Y Retirement’s Composite Benchmark, a weighted blend of asset class benchmarks reflecting Y Retirement’s long-term investment strategy. Over the ten-year period ending June 30, 2023, Y Retirement’s portfolio generated approximately 8% average annual returns which has enabled Y Retirement to safeguard account balances (risk free), grow participant account balances by granting competitive interest credits and provide lifetime income for retirees.