Get Indexology® Blog updates via email.


Tag Archives: Defined Contribution

Jun 15, 2021

Will Inflation Actually Be Transitory?

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.” – Milton Friedman  “If we do see what we believe is likely a transitory increase in inflation … I expect that we will…

READ

May 26, 2021

The Dow and the World Around It

Only one index has endured through half of American history. Explore the historic path of the original index icon.   To learn more about the history of the DJIA and to celebrate its 125th anniversary, please visit: https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/landing/topic/djia-125/

READ

May 25, 2021

Something New with Something Old: DIY DJIA®

The growth of index funds has, in the main, helped to lower the costs and improve the performance of the average investor’s portfolio. Now, some are seeking to improve upon even the relatively low costs of conventional index funds via so-called “direct indexing”, by which investors purchase securities to match an index themselves, disintermediating the…

READ

May 24, 2021

How Now The Dow?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average® (DJIA) will celebrate its quasquicentennial on Wednesday, which marks exactly 125 years since the index’s first publication. Before one of the world’s most watched and widely cited benchmarks hits this milestone, here is an overview of “The Dow®,” including its origins, what has stayed the same over the years, and…

READ

May 12, 2021

Equity: Diversity and Inclusion

We can think of an active equity portfolio as a combination of a benchmark (the S&P 500®, for example) and a set of active bets that measure the portfolio’s deviation from the benchmark. The relative size of the active bets is sometimes called “active share,” and is a convenient way to judge a manager’s aggressiveness….

READ

Apr 29, 2021

Woodstock for Capitalists

Berkshire Hathaway is scheduled to hold its annual shareholders’ meeting this Saturday, May 1. This is the second consecutive year in which the meeting will be virtual; in 2019, attendance was nearly 40,000, which makes social distancing somewhat difficult. We noted two years ago that Berkshire’s investment performance, though formidable over the long run, had…

READ

Mar 30, 2021

Opportunity Does Not Equal Attainment

We’ve previously argued that most managers should prefer above-average correlation, because the incremental volatility a manager accepts to pursue an active strategy will be lower when correlations are high. In addition, active managers should prefer above-average dispersion, because stock selection skill is worth more when dispersion is high. Both correlation and dispersion rose in 2020….

READ

Mar 25, 2021

Risk-Adjusted SPIVA Year-End 2020 Scorecard: No Evidence to Support Superior Risk Management Skills of Active Managers

Modern Portfolio Theory tells us that higher returns tend to be associated with higher risk. Active managers tend to boast about their risk management skills and claim that they can generate higher returns than passive funds on a risk-adjusted basis. The Risk-Adjusted SPIVA® Scorecard assesses the risk-adjusted returns of actively managed funds against their benchmarks…

READ

Mar 18, 2021

Highlights of the SPIVA Canada Year-End 2020 Scorecard

Although 2020 was a year that offered ample opportunities for stock pickers to shine, most Canadian active fund managers in five of the seven categories tracked by the SPIVA® Canada Year-End 2020 Scorecard underperformed their benchmarks over the past year. The Canadian equity market was not spared from the COVID-19 shock in 2020. Nevertheless, major…

READ

Mar 18, 2021

SPIVA and Style

Last week S&P Dow Jones Indices released its SPIVA® U.S. Year-End 2020 Scorecard. As has been the case for 17 of the past 20 calendar years, the majority of active large-cap managers underperformed the S&P 500®. Performance was better for mid- and small-cap managers, as Exhibit 1 shows. What caused the advantage for smaller-capitalization strategies?…

READ


Get Indexology® Blog updates via email.

Indexology® Blog
Contributors

SEE ALL