That's a nice way of saying that during recent years the Harvard Management Company, the university's investment subsidiary, diverted large portions of the university's endowment assets out of safe but poky low-yield securities (as of last June fixed-income investments accounted for only 16% of Harvard's portfolio) and into what this Forbes story describes as "exotic financial instruments": derivatives, hedge funds, private equity partnerships, commodities and emerging-market equities.

FORBES: How Harvard Should Handle Its Endowment

For example, if one had shifted assets out of the U.S. into a broad array of investible high yield countries with favorable freedom dynamics four years ago (slightly before the global credit crisis), he would have strongly outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

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The embrace of risky assets drove investors out of U.S. Treasurys, which tumbled, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year note up to 1.958%.

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Not a huge obstacle for yield seeking banks, especially if those assets are backed by the U.S government, but an obstacle that could give some banks pause.

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The yield on the note has fallen over the last month as demand for less risky assets increased following the crisis in Cyprus and signs of a slowdown in the U.S. The yield was as high as 2.06 percent on March 11.

NPR: Wall Street Stocks Little Changed; Best Buy Soars