SHRUTI GANDHI@ATSHRUTI APRIL 2, 2017 1:05 PM Image Credit: fotohunter/Shutterstock Venture capital and private equity investments are outperforming the S&P 500, according toSteve Kaplan, an economist from the University of Chicago. Kaplan recently did a study to measure returns on the two asset classes compared to the S&P 500 over 10 years (2003–2013). Common methods for measuring fund performance are Annualized IRR and Multiple of Invested Capital (MOIC), both of which have their drawbacks since they don’t control for market movements. So Kaplan and MIT economistAntoinette Schoardesigned a method called theKaplan Schoar Public Market Equivalent, aka KS-PME). The KS-PME is more of a market-adjusted multiple so you can understand how the funds are doing compared to S&P 500. https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/02/vc-performance-is-beating-the-sp-500/
Which is why private valuations have shot way up. Everyone's buying yesterday's performance. Future returns may not be as attractive.
There's no question that everything is shifting toward VC and away from traditional equity trading. I have lost count of the number of hedgies who are now in or considering the private markets.