Jack L. Treynor papers, 1928-2017, bulk 1956-2016

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Summary

Creator:
Economists' Papers Archive, Treynor, Jack L., and Treynor, Betsy, 1939-
Abstract:
Jack Lawrence Treynor (1930-2016) was President of Treynor Capital Management. This collection primarily documents his professional life through his correspondence, writings, professional activities, research, and teaching. It was acquired as part of the Economists' Papers Archive.
Extent:
45.4 Linear Feet (35 record cartons, one document box, and one flat box.)
19.9 Gigabytes
Language:
Material in English.
Collection ID:
RL.13001

Background

Scope and content:

This material came from Treynor's home, which doubled as his office for Treynor Capital Management (TCM) after it was established in 1985. He shared this residence with his wife Betsy Treynor, who he also employed as TCM's administrative assistant. Her name appears frequently due to this close personal-professional relationship, and she is the creator or co-creator of many items, including most of the electronic records. There are also printouts of email intended for Jack but addressed to Betsy, with her replying on his behalf or as herself.

The primary subjects are accounting, active management, inflation, investment value, risk, trading, and unemployment. Of historical significance is the file for the paper where he first introduced the capital asset pricing model (CAPM): "Market Value, Time, and Risk" (1961), which he later split into "Towards a Theory of Market Value of Risky Assets" (1962; published in Korajczyk 1999) and "Implications for the Theory of Finance" (1963). There many folders related to TCM; his University of Southern California course on investment analysis and portfolio management; and his involvement with the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance, the Financial Analysts Journal , and the Journal of Investment Management .

The most common types of material are correspondence, research files with notes and graphs, manuscript files with drafts and reprints, and files on his professional activities as a financial analyst and active member of professional associations and scholarly journals. Much of this material is handwritten, including many letter-size notepads and transparencies (the latter of which have been photocopied and the originals discarded). There are three IBM mag (magnetic) cards for use with an electric typewriter and one laminated plaque of a handwritten certificate. There are three external hard drives, the contents of two of which have been copied, weeded, and made available. There is correspondence, writings, professional activities, and personal material, including many digital photos taken by amateur photographer Betsy in the early days of digital photography (only folders containing at least one photo with Jack were retained).

The greatest amount of professional correspondence is with economists and financial analysts like Peter L. Berstein, Craig W. French, Matti von Türk, Craig T. Boyd, Harry M. Markowitz, and Peter McNerney, as well as the publishers John Wiley and Son and McGraw-Hill. Other notable economists include three letters from Milton Friedman, a few letters addressed to Merton Miller and Franco Modigliani, and three writings co-authored with Fischer Black.

Besides Betsy, Jack's work was also supported by their daughter Wendy Treynor, who proofread and scripted the regression analysis for some of his scientific articles.

Biographical / historical:

Jack Lawrence Treynor (1930-2016) was a white American economist who was born in the railroad town of Council Bluffs, Iowa on 21 February 1930 to Dr. Jack Vernon Treynor (1897-1966) and Alice Cecil (Calvin) Treynor (1897-1992). The younger Jack demonstrated a talent for mathematics in high school by securing victory in a statewide science competition with a paper on finite differential calculus, and he was president of the literary society and played football.

Treynor graduated with a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Haverford College in 1951 and a Master of Business Administration (with distinction) from Harvard Business School in 1955. Between these two degrees, he was drafted during the Korean War and served for two years in the US Army Signal Corps in New Jersey.

After graduation, Treynor stayed at Harvard to write business cases for Bob Anthony in accounting until he was hired at the international management consulting firm Arthur D. Little, Inc. in 1956 to work in the Operations Research Department. That same year, he published his first book Machine Tool Leasing , coauthored with Robert F. Vancil. It was at Arthur D. Little that he met economist Fischer Black in 1965, who became one of his only coauthors and mentees.

Treynor was the first to write on the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) in "Market Value, Time, and Risk" in 1961, after which he was invited by Franco Modigliani to enroll at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). During this 1962-1963 sabbatical and per Modigliani's recommendation, Treynor subsequently split his paper into "Toward a Theory of Market Value of Risky Assets" (1962) and "Implications for the Theory of Finance" (1963). These papers were presented at MIT and widely circulated as mimeographs but not published until 1999. In 1990, William F. Sharpe was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his role in developing CAPM, which he had done independently of Treynor around the same time and published in 1964.

In 1966, Donald Regan at Merrill Lynch hired Treynor to offer quantitative investment services to institutions. Teynor married Marion Elizabeth "Betsy" Glassmeyer (born 1939) in 1968 and they had three children: Elizabeth (born 1969) then Wendy and Thomas (born 1975).

From 1969 to mid-1981, Treynor was editor of the CFA Institute's Financial Analysts Journal (FAJ). It was during this time that he published "The Only Game in Town" (1971) and "Risk Corporate Pension Funds" (1972) under the pen name Walter Bagehot, plus "Risk and Reward in Corporate Pension Funds" (1971) and "Friedman and the Flat Tire" (1974) as Alf Marshall. He was also heavily involved with the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance (Q Group) after becoming a member in 1968, and he was elected a Distinguished Research Fellow in 1994 before the Jack Treynor Prize was created in his honor in 2014. In 1976, he published his second book The Financial Reality of Pension Funding Under ERISA , coauthored with Patrick Regan and William Priest.

Treynor returned to business in late 1981 when he partnered with Harold Arbit to form the investment management firm Treynor-Arbit Associates, where he was Chief Investment Officer. After this partnership broke down in 1985, he founded his own corporation--Jack L. Treynor, Inc., renamed Treynor Capital Management, Inc.--but Betsy was involved with all administrative aspects from the beginning. He also served as director for several investment management companies, like the Boston-based Eaton Vance, and he became a Visiting Associate Professor in Finance at the University of Southern California (1985-1988) then Loyola Marymount University (1988-1989) after having previously taught investment courses at Columbia University in the late 1970s.

Treynor received different awards throughout his career for his contributions to the field of finance, some of the most important of which include the 1985 Nicholas Molodovsky Award (for "outstanding contributions in investment research of such significance as to change the direction of the profession") and the 2007 Professional Excellence Award (for "exemplary achievement, excellence of practice, and true leadership have inspired and reflected honor upon [the] profession to the highest degree") from the CFA Institute. He was also named the 2007 International Association of Financial Engineers/SunGuard Financial Engineer of the Year for his contributions to financial theory and practice.

Treynor died on 11 May 2016 in Harbor City, California.

References:

Burger, Dani. "Jack Treynor, Leader in Investment Theory, Dies at 86." The Washington Post , May 14, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/jack-treynor-leader-in-investment-theory-dies-at-86/2016/05/14/89b5f066-1918-11e6-924d-838753295f9a_story.html.

French, Craig W. "The Treynor Capital Asset Pricing Model." Journal of Investment Management 1, no. 2 (2003): 60–72. https://ssrn.com/abstract=447580.

Guerard, John B., ed. Portfolio Construction, Measurement, and Efficiency: Essays in Honor of Jack Treynor . Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017.

Hagerty, James R. "Scholar Jack Treynor Changed Thinking on How to Build a Stock Portfolio." The Wall Street Journal , May 27, 2016. https://www.wsj.com/articles/scholar-jack-treynor-changed-thinking-on-how-to-build-a-stock-portfolio-1464383222.

Treynor, Jack L. Treynor on Institutional Investing . Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons, 2008.

Acquisition information:
The Jack L. Treynor Papers were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library as a gift from Elizabeth G. Treynor in 2019.
Processing information:

Processed by Nestor Lovera Nieto, June 2024.

Electronic records processed by Zachary Tumlin, May 2024.

Accessions described in this collection guide: 2019-0113.

Arrangement:

The Jack L. Treynor papers are arranged into six series: Correspondence, Writings, Professional Activities, Research, Teaching, and Personal

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
General note:

This collection guide is dedicated to Sara Seten Berghausen, our late Associate Curator of Collections. The Treynor papers were the last economic collection that she indicated as a processing priority.

Contents

Using These Materials

Using These Materials Links:

Using These Materials

Restrictions:

Access note. Some materials in this collection are electronic records that require special equipment. Contact Research Services with questions.

Terms of access:

The copyright interests in this collection have not been transferred to Duke University. For more information, consult the Rubenstein Library's Citations, Permissions, and Copyright guide.

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Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Jack L. Treynor papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University.

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