Follow Swensen's Yale Endowment Fund

David Swensen has gained great fame in the last few years as the head of the Yale Endowment Fund (you can click here for more about the fund's performance).

As the exchange-traded vehicle industry has evolved over the last few years, it has become easier to emulate the fund.

Here's how it's possible to use things like ETFs and mutual funds to create your own endowment.

Click here for larger image.

(Source: Bespoke Investment Group)

The basic goal behind this sort of mix is strong returns, low volatility and a low correlation to the U.S. stock market. It's easy to see how the right people implementing a portfolio with these tools could accomplish that goal.

Obviously domestic equities, foreign equities, fixed income and cash are all readily available.

Absolute Return

There have been many products added to the absolute return in the last few years. Some that I think are worth exploring;

• Rydex Managed Futures Strategy (RYMFX Quote), which I wrote about here and here.

• Permanent Portfolio (PRPFX Quote)

There are also countless mutual funds that use long/short strategies. Some of these funds struggled badly last summer, just as the market's volatility was ramping up. A couple that did relatively well were:

• JP Morgan Multi Cap Market Neutral Fund (OGNIX Quote); don't let the 48-cent dividend in December throw you.

• Merger Fund (MERFX Quote), which I blogged about here.

One last idea to mention for absolute return would be creating your own pairs trade involving sector ETFs, which I wrote about in detail here and here.

Private Equity

Private equity is tricky. There are plenty of exchange-traded vehicles, but just about every one that I found is down a lot more than the market. Most of them have very high yields, but they had high yields before they fell that didn't protect them.