Priscilla Luk
Managing Director, Global Research & Design, APAC, S&P Dow Jones Indices
Did Australian Active Funds Outperform Benchmarks amid the COVID-19 Pandemic?
With the COVID-19 pandemic, equity markets around the world experienced massive declines with heightened volatility, and the Australian equity market was not immune. Various equity market segments experienced rapid market sell-offs followed by slow recoveries in H1 2020, with the S&P/ASX 200, S&P/ASX Mid-Small, and S&P/ASX 200 A-REIT decreasing 10.4%, 6.9%, and 21.3%, respectively. Due…
From COVID-19 to U.S.-China Tensions, What to Expect Next for Chinese Equities
On May 29, 2020, I joined S&P Global’s The Essential Podcast, “A View to the Future – China Beyond the Pandemic,” to discuss the Chinese equity market’s performance and the macroeconomic trends during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. This blog includes some key highlights we discussed, along with the related index performance observed in the…
How the Chinese Equity Market Responded to the Domestic and Global Coronavirus Outbreak
As the coronavirus has spread across continents, countries around the world are experiencing a slowdown in economic activity and volatility in the financial markets. The S&P Pan Asia BMI and S&P 500® lost 20.5% and 20.0%, respectively,[1] in the first quarter of 2020. During the same period, the S&P China A Domestic BMI and S&P…
How Did Australian Active Funds Perform in 2017?
The SPIVA® Australia Scorecard reports on the performance of actively managed Australian mutual funds against their respective benchmark indices over various investment horizons. In the year-end 2017 report, we extended the analysis to 15 years. In 2017, the majority of Australian funds in most categories underperformed their respective benchmarks, apart from the Australian A-REIT category….
Does Factor Investing Deserve More Attention in Hong Kong?
Factor investing, which is also broadly referred to as smart beta, has gained popularity in the global asset management industry, especially in the exchange-traded funds segment. Factor-based index-linked products are used as cost-effective tools to enhance return or reduce risk by increasing number of market participants in the U.S., with 20.9% of U.S. ETP assets…
- Categories Equities, Factors
- Tags exchange-traded products, factor investing, Hong Kong
Why Did the Majority of A-REIT Funds Outperform in the Past 12 Months?
In the mid-year 2017 SPIVA® Australia Scorecard, the majority of Australian funds underperformed their respective benchmarks across most categories, similar to previous scorecards. More than 80% of Australian Mid- and Small-Cap funds underperformed the S&P/ASX Mid-Small over the past 12 months. In contrast, A-REIT funds stood out as the best-performing category versus their benchmark, the…
Are You Looking for Outperforming Funds?
When one is paying management fees for the investment in active funds, one might reasonably expect the funds to outperform benchmarks and resist downturn when the market is volatile. However, results from our S&P Indices Versus Active (SPIVA®) Scorecards[1] suggest this expectation is often not met. SPIVA reports across different regions, including the U.S., Canada,…
Is There Merit in Blending Factors in Smart Beta Strategies?
Despite the fact that many single-factor strategies have empirically delivered positive excess returns in the long run, they have suffered periods of substantial underperformance under certain market conditions due to their cyclicality. Blending a number of desired factors with low correlations is a potential way to attain more balanced and diversified portfolios. The obvious questions…
Performance of Smart Beta Strategies Across Market and Economic Cycles
Historically, factor-based strategies have generated significant risk-adjusted returns in the long run, but they can also exhibit a high amount of cyclicality in the short run. Based on our studies of factor performance under different financial regimes—the market cycle, the business cycle, and the investor sentiment regime—we found that factor strategies historically have been most…
- Categories Equities, Factors, S&P 500 & DJIA
- Categories
- Equities, Factors, S&P 500 & DJIA
Rotating Australian Cyclical and Defensive Sectors Over Global Economic Cycles
Rotating between cyclical and defensive stocks across economic cycles is a common approach for investors to take advantage of different economic phases. Energy, materials, industrials, consumer discretionary, financials and information technology are traditionally considered cyclical sectors, as stocks in these sectors have tended to be highly correlated to economic cycles. In contrast, consumer staples, healthcare,…
- Categories Equities
- Tags Australia, Australian equities, cyclical sectors, defensive sectors
- Categories
- Equities