Fiona Boal is Head of Commodities and Real Assets at S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI). She is responsible for the product management of the commodities, real asset, and housing price indices, including the S&P GSCI, Dow Jones Commodity Index (DJCI), S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, and S&P Real Assets Indices. These indices are leading measures of the commodities market, U.S. residential real estate prices, and composite real assets.
Prior to joining S&P DJI, Fiona worked as Director and Portfolio Manager at Fulcrum Asset Management, where she gained a wealth of experience in proprietary research and investment management, as well as specialist knowledge of energy, agriculture, soft, and livestock commodity markets. Previously, she worked as Associate Director of Commodities at Hermes Investment Management, Director of Commodity Research at Argonaut Capital Management, Vice President and Director of Investments at Harbert Strategic Commodities, and Executive Director of Food & Agribusiness Research at Rabobank International.
Fiona holds a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics (first class honors and university medal) from the University of Sydney and a Master of Applied Finance from Macquarie University.Over the past two decades, innovation in futures-based commodity indexing has allowed for the launch of commodity indices beyond broad market beta indices and into more sophisticated strategies with non-traditional roll mechanisms or contract selection. In that vein, S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) offers a wide variety of oil indices that offer exposure at Read more […]
This blog reflects on the actions taken by S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) to ensure that our commodity indices remain replicable and investable in light of the recent extraordinary market conditions experienced in the oil market. Perhaps no other investable asset has been as severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as oil—not equities, not Read more […]
The long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on commodities markets is not yet known. There have undoubtedly been short-term impacts on supply and demand, ranging from a collapse in oil demand to supply disruptions at individual mines as a result of COVID-19 infections among mine employees. The longer-term implications of these demand and supply shocks, Read more […]
With the stock market in the midst of a historic slump, many investors may be looking to alternatives to protect against a prolonged downturn. The S&P Strategic Futures Indices are designed to measure the performance of passively constructed, liquid, and transparent solutions by spreading risk evenly across global futures markets utilizing a long/short trend-following strategy Read more […]
Managed futures strategies generally tend to be trend following, which means that when an individual asset shows a clear price uptrend (or downtrend), the strategy will hold a long (or short) position in the asset. The strategies use a wide variety of quantitative models that utilize highly liquid, regulated, exchange-traded financial derivatives across equity, fixed Read more […]
Much has been made of the relative performance of gold since the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The S&P GSCI Gold gained 10.2% YTD through April 7, 2020, highlighting its safe-haven status; however, it is worth reviewing this performance and considering what demand drivers may influence gold prices over the coming months. The generally Read more […]
It is difficult to accurately express the magnitude of the health, societal, and economic costs of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the lens of the commodities markets, the economic impact has been swift and severe. The broad-based S&P GSCI ended March down an extraordinary 29.4%, the largest monthly drop in performance in the index’s nearly 29-year Read more […]
The S&P GSCI Brent Crude Oil has fallen by more than 30% over the first six trading days of March. On Friday, March 6, 2020, Russia opted out of a Saudi-led proposal to extend and deepen crude production cuts that had been central to a nearly three-year OPEC+ agreement to manage global oil supplies. With Read more […]
The S&P GSCI Carbon Emission Allowances (EUA) EUR represents an expansion of the single-commodity series of indices based on the S&P GSCI and is the first index of its kind in the market. The S&P GSCI Carbon Emission Allowances (EUA) EUR is designed to provide investors with a reliable and publicly available investment performance benchmark Read more […]
The S&P GSCI, a widely recognized measure of broad commodities market beta, fell 8.4% in February. The global spread of coronavirus represents a simultaneous demand and supply shock, a situation that is close to unprecedented in global commodities markets. Across these markets, losses in February were driven by the petroleum complex and livestock, while even Read more […]