Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service® Reports Positive First Quarter of 2025 with 0.92% Gross Return

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‍Santa Monica, Calif., May 13, 2025 — Institutional assets tracked by Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service® (Wilshire TUCS®) posted an all-plan median gross return of 0.92% for the first quarter and 5.87% for the 12 months ending March 31, 2025. Wilshire TUCS, a cooperative effort between Wilshire and custodial organizations, is widely considered the definitive benchmark for U.S. institutional plan assets performance and allocation.

“Global markets have been plagued with heightened volatility as investors process the potential implications of what continues to be a very unclear outlook on trade policy. More recently, a softening tone on tariffs followed a sharp selloff in risk assets, particularly in the United States,” said Josh Emanuel, CIO of Wilshire. “Public plans, corporate plans and foundation and endowments all outperformed a traditional 60/40 portfolio. Larger plans, with higher allocations to alternatives, generally outperformed smaller plans,” Emanuel added.

U.S. equities, represented by the FT Wilshire 5000 Index^℠, fell -4.84% in the first quarter but rose 7.11% for the 12 months ending in March; meanwhile, international equities, represented by the MSCI AC World ex U.S., returned 5.24% in the first quarter and 6.09% for the past year. U.S. bonds, represented by the Wilshire Bond Index℠, returned 2.79% in the first quarter with a gain of 4.72% for the one-year.

Across all plan types, quarterly median returns ranged from 0.42% to 1.75% for small foundations and endowments (assets below $500 million) and large corporate funds (assets above $1 billion), respectively. One-year median returns ranged from 5.12% to 6.27% for small foundations and endowments and small public funds (assets below $1 billion), respectively.

For the quarter, median public plans, corporate plans and foundation and endowments outperformed the global 60/40 portfolio gain of 0.35%. All plan medians underperformed the 4.27% gain for the multi-asset Wilshire Risk Parity – 12% Target Volatility Index. Large corporate plans outperformed all other sizes and plan types in the first quarter due to relatively low allocations to U.S. equity. Allocation trends continue to show significant exposure for large foundations and endowments to alternatives, with a median first quarter allocation above 50%. Large corporate and public funds had median first quarter allocations to alternatives of 22.2% and 20.7%, respectively.

Wilshire TUCS Plan Returns versus 60/40 and WRP12 — First Quarter 2025

For illustrative and discussion purposes only.

For the past 12 months, all large and small plan groups underperformed the 6.31% gain for the 60/40 portfolio but outperformed the 2.75% gain for the multi-asset Wilshire Risk Parity – 12% Target Volatility Index. Large plans underperformed small for both public and corporate plans but outperformed with foundation and endowments, due mostly to larger allocations to alternatives.

Wilshire TUCS Plan Returns versus 60/40 and WRP12 — Year Ending March 2025

For illustrative and discussion purposes only.

Large plans (assets above $1 billion) overall posted gains of 0.95% for the quarter and a gain of 5.80% for the year ending March 31, 2025; meanwhile small plans (assets less than $1 billion) underperformed large for the quarter but led for the year with returns of 0.80% and 5.96%, respectively.

About Wilshire

Wilshire is a leading global financial services firm and trusted partner to a diverse range of approximately 300 leading institutional investors and financial intermediaries.¹ Our clients rely on us to improve investment outcomes for a better future. Wilshire advises on over $1.5 trillion in assets and manages $123 billion in assets as of December 31, 2024.² Wilshire is headquartered in the United States with offices worldwide. More information on Wilshire can be found at www.wilshire.com

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¹ Includes institutional investors, financial intermediaries, and Wilshire-sponsored vehicles. Does not include individual retirement plans and retail investors via financial intermediary platforms.

² Assets under advisement refers to the total amount of assets (inclusive of assets under management) attributable to all of Wilshire’s advisory relationships, including various consulting and advisory relationships for which Wilshire provides investment advisory services without engaging, on either a discretionary or non-discretionary basis, in the direct management of a client’s portfolio. Assets under management refers to the amount of assets attributable to securities portfolios for which Wilshire provides discretionary and non-discretionary asset management services and is calculated differently than “regulatory assets under management.”

Wilshire TUCS®

The Wilshire TUCS® Benchmarks reflect the invested universe of the over 450 U.S. fund sponsors and the over $4.9 trillion in assets (U.S.) they represent in the Wilshire TUCS database as of 3/31/2024. Available quarterly, the Wilshire TUCS® has both plan level and portfolio level designations that delineate to which universe they belong. Wilshire TUCS® benchmarks provide performance, allocation and risk quartiles based on the multiple-sponsor, plan type, asset class and asset size universes. Provided in the traditional “blind” quartile break format, these benchmarks reflect Wilshire Associates’ recognition of a plan sponsor’s desire for anonymity, while also providing a powerful benchmark for the investment manager and advisor firm. Wilshire TUCS data is comprised of plans contributed by the participating custodian bank and is calculated using accounting inputs and computational methods standards. These standards were established to ensure the accuracy and comparability of data in the universe.

Index Definitions

FT Wilshire US 5000 Index — The FT Wilshire US 5000 Index is a broad-based market capitalization-weighted index that aims to capture 100% of the US investible market capitalization.

MSCI ACWI ex USA Index — The MSCI ACWI ex USA Index captures large- and mid-cap representation across developed markets countries (excluding the United States) and emerging markets countries. The index covers approximately 85% of the global equity opportunity set outside the United States.

Wilshire Bond Index^℠ — The Wilshire Bond Index^℠ measures the performance of the U.S. taxable fixed income market based on actual holdings of U.S. institutional investors. The index includes all U.S. debt securities that are held by institutional investors represented by Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service® (TUCS®).

Wilshire Risk Parity Index – 12% Target Volatility — The Wilshire Risk Parity Index – 12% Target Volatility is designed to measure the performance of a multi-asset risk parity strategy that allocates risk equally among three risk baskets: equity, rates and inflation while targeting an ex-ante volatility level of 12%.

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Important Information

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