Chris Bennett
Former Director, Index Investment Strategy , S&P Dow Jones Indices
Will Powell Power the Aristocrats?
As the recovery from the Global Financial Crisis edged forward in the early 2010s, inflation hawks warned about the “certainty” of an imminent spike in inflation following the aggressive stimulus measures taken by global central banks. Unfortunately for the U.S. Federal Reserve and some of its other monetary counterparts, that certainty never materialized, and it…
Not that wrong
Stock markets continue to rally globally, ascending a wall of poor economic data and significant negative sentiment. Concern that current price levels are unjustifiable is widespread: 78% of respondents to the most recent Bank of America Global Fund Manager Survey believe that the market is overpriced, the highest level since the survey began in 1998. …
29 Days Later
On February 19th, the S&P 500® closed at an all-time high of 3386; last night, exactly one month later it closed at 2409, a 29% decline from the high. Let’s take a moment to reflect on what’s happened over the last month. We should first start by putting the decline into historical context. The peak-to-trough…
The Darkest Hour
“It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth” -Thomas Fuller The bull market is over. After 11 years of impressive and relatively steady gains, last week the S&P 500® slid into bear market territory, marking the end of the glory of the 2010s and the start of a new regime. Volatility is back with…
From “Hard to Beat” to Nigh-On Impossible
Our SPIVA® reports have shown, year after year, that market-cap weighted benchmarks are, to put it kindly, hard to beat. However, in 2019 a range of circumstances made “hard to beat” become nigh-on impossible for the S&P 500®. In general, there are three common ways by which an active portfolio can outperform its benchmark: over…
The Road Less Traveled
It is a truth universally acknowledged that liquidity is critical to market health; typically when liquidity falls, volatility rises. The Financial Times recently cited claims that the increased use of passive investment vehicles had caused trading volumes in individual S&P 500 constituents to decline. Should we be alarmed? In reality, the notion that single-stock traders…
Unicorns: Only in Fairy Tales
“A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is” -Description of company marketed during the South Sea Bubble (1720) Private companies, particularly those hailing from Silicon Valley and combining just the right mix of buzzwords, have captured both headlines and investor attention. The media report breathlessly on…
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Illustrating the Value of Liquidity
Let’s suppose for a moment that you are given a choice between two hypothetical exchange traded funds (ETFs) tracking the same index. Fund A has an annual management fee of 0.4% while Fund B has an annual management fee of 0.1%. At first glance, Fund B seems like the better option: it offers similar performance…
A Changing Stride for an Ageing Bull
Taking a cue from Frank Sinatra, the S&P 500® was riding high in April, shot down in May, and got back on top in June. But the current bull run is feeling its age, and we may be witnessing a change in its stride. Coming into the end of the quarter (all figures are…
Mayday, Mayday!
Coming into month-end, and as the street prepares its monthly summaries, (all figures are as of May 29th), the S&P 500 looks set to complete the month with a loss of around 5%. So, what went wrong? Global markets started the year very positively: the S&P 500 was up 18% by the end of April,…