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May 2015 Investment Office Update
While May began with a spillover of April's market volatility, market sentiment improved in the second half of the month on the back of encouraging economic data releases. The U.S. equity markets produced gains, with the S&P 500 appreciating 1.3%.[1] Japan's equity markets also performed well, as the country's economy experienced a bigger-than-expected boost from exports due to the weak yen. Despite the fact that the European economy continued to make progress with slow but steady growth, concerns about Greece's ability to reach a deal with its creditors, in order to avoid a default and possible exit from the euro, continued to foster market volatility. Emerging markets were unable to repeat their strong performance from April - the MSCI EM Index fell 4.0% due to concerns about the Federal Reserve Bank beginning to normalize U.S. monetary policy.
[1] S&P 500 returns include reinvested dividends, while MSCI EM Index returns include reinvested net dividends.
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Johns Hopkins University and University of Maryland, College Park to Open Data Research Center
Big data makes it possible for researchers to learn about everything from the natural sciences to education, but can be costly when research centers are required to create their own high-performance computing centers. To save costs and share resources, the State of Maryland has provided $30 million in funding to the Maryland Advanced Research Computing Center, which will provide state-of-the-art digital processing power to researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park and Johns Hopkins University. The new center will be one of the largest academic computing centers in the nation and will allow researchers to work remotely, leading to significant cost savings, greater efficiency, and faster computing times to generate results.
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The Institute of Human Virology (IHV) recently received a five-year, $24.5 million grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The grant will allow the IHV to partner with the government of Botswana to work toward impacting the HIV/AIDS epidemic and demonstrating that comprehensive treatment programs can stop the epidemic in Botswana. The announcement was made on the heels of two recent IHV milestones including surpassing more than 1 million patients receiving overseas care and treatment and a $50 million grant to combat HIV/AIDS in Zambia.
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The Nursing Department at Salisbury University (SU) recently received the largest grant in its history - nearly $2.1 million - to continue a project that prepares clinical experts to become nursing faculty. In 2011, the Eastern Shore Faculty Academy and Mentoring Initiative (ES-FAMI) was created by SU and several partners to develop quality adjunct professors, with a particular emphasis on recruiting men and individuals from diverse backgrounds. In training more experts to become nursing faculty through ES-FAMI, a greater number of nursing students can receive proper education and training to help address nursing shortages in Maryland and beyond.
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