Q3 2026 Preliminary Plan Universe Performance

Plan performance

Volatility returned to markets in third quarter as conflict in the Middle East drove up oil prices and continued concerns around inflation led the Federal Reserve to raise rates in September. Global equity markets posted modest gains in the third quarter with the MSCI ACWI Index returning 1.69%. Within fixed income, U.S. Treasury yields rose leading to a sell off as the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Index returned -3.51% for the quarter, while the Bloomberg U.S. Long Treasury Index returned -8.03%.

The Confluence^® All Defined Benefit Plan Sponsor Universe posted a median net return of -1.08% for the quarter. All plan types underperformed a traditional 60/40 benchmark return of -.41%. (60% MSCI ACWI Index/ 40% Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Index). For the year to date ending September, the median Defined Benefit plan returned 6.14%.

Public plans delivered the best performance for the year to date, mainly driven by their higher exposures to equity, which was the best performing asset class. As figure 2 highlights, the year-to-date median equity returns across all defined benefit plans were 12.09%. Corporate plans posted the worst performance year to date with a median return of 1.98%. As previously noted, corporate plans have nearly twice the exposure to fixed income and significantly less exposure to equity when compared to public plans.

Confluence Plan Universe

Confluence Plan Universe is the industry’s most granular analytics tool for plan sponsors including standard and custom peer group comparisons of performance, risk, and asset allocations by plan type and size. The data is sourced directly from over 4,000 institutions using our reporting and analytics solutions, including investment consultants, advisors, and asset owners. Plan Universe is updated quarterly and typically available on or near the following schedule: preliminary data available on the 14th business day after quarter end, a second cut on the 21st business day, and final cut on the 29th business day. The data includes 20+ years’ history on:

• Trust Funds, Corporates, Public Plans, Taft-Hartley, Endowments & Foundations, High Net Worth, Health & Welfare, and custom groups.
• Asset Allocations broken into equity (US, global, global ex-US), fixed income (US, global, and global ex-US), alternatives, real estate (public and private), multi-asset and cash. Emerging Markets allocations are available for equities and debt securities.
• Net and gross performances displayed by quartile with full percentiles via download.
• With all information aggregated by Plan Size