Anu R. Ganti is Director, Index Investment Strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI). The index investment strategy team provides research and commentary on the entire S&P DJI product set, including U.S. and global equities, commodities, fixed income, and economic indices.
Prior to joining S&P DJI, Anu worked in the asset management space, completing a post-MBA rotational program at Russell Investments and working as a portfolio manager focusing on emerging market equities at Parametric Portfolio Associates (subsidiary of Eaton Vance).
Anu is a CFA charterholder and holds an MBA in Finance & Economics from Columbia Business School, and a bachelor’s degree in Finance & Marketing from NYU’s Stern School of Business.Indexing provides many rewards, including a reduction in volatility. Asset owners should demand higher returns to justify the volatility that active management entails. For managers who put their stock selection skills to the test, it is worth understanding the height of the volatility hurdle in managing a portfolio’s risk/return profile. We can illustrate this by Read more […]
We’ve previously observed that we can view the world through both a factor and a sector lens, but what about overlaying sectors and style? This is indeed possible, as sectors can serve as implementation vehicles to achieve a particular view on style. Using value and growth scores that are reset annually for every constituent within Read more […]
As we approach the final month of a rollercoaster year in the markets, adding a factor lens can provide perspective, especially when it comes to low volatility. The goal of low volatility strategies is to provide investors with protection in falling markets and participation in rising markets. The need for protection has become more relevant Read more […]
Equal-weight indices have a small-cap tilt. Therefore, one might naturally assume that the volatility of equal-weight indices is higher than that of their cap-weighted counterparts. Surprisingly, this is not always the case, and we can understand why using the lens of dispersion and correlation. Exhibit 1 shows that the volatility of the S&P 500® Equal Read more […]
We’ve recently noted that this month’s market turmoil created a radical reversal of factor returns, poking holes in this year’s momentum bubble. A similar trend has occurred within sectors. During the first nine months of 2018, Consumer Discretionary and Info Tech dominated performance, as seen in Exhibit 1. For the first two weeks of October, Read more […]
Effective prior to the market open on Sept. 24, 2018, the Telecommunication Services sector will be replaced with a new Communication Services sector, which will combine telecom with parts of the Information Technology and Consumer Discretionary sectors. As a result, Telecom, the ugly duckling sector comprising three stodgy telephone companies, will now be joined by Read more […]
We recently launched the monthly U.S. S&P Select Industry Dashboard, which provides key metrics, analysis of correlation and dispersion, and historical risk/return data for 20 investable select industry indices. The dashboard is a natural extension of our U.S. Select Sector Dashboard, which provides analysis for investable sectors across the large-, mid-, and small-cap ranges. For Read more […]
Since antiquity, people have measured time in months. Unsurprisingly, investors tend to evaluate performance in monthly increments. This can be troublesome, as we will see in the case of low volatility, particularly during market regime changes. Low volatility strategies are designed to provide investors with protection in falling markets and participation in rising markets. Disappointments Read more […]
Consider this thought experiment: You “know” that 499 of the companies in the S&P 500® will return exactly 5% next year. One will return 100%. You have no way to determine which stock will be the big winner, or to know or infer anything about its characteristics. You can invest in either a cap-weighted S&P Read more […]
Most sentient investors are aware of the low volatility that characterizes the current environment, with the S&P 500®’s trailing twelve-month annualized volatility at approximately half its level from a year ago. This trend was driven in part by some significant negative inter-sectoral correlations, for example between information technology and real estate versus financials, and energy Read more […]