
Hamish Preston
Associate Director, U.S. Equity Indices, S&P Dow Jones Indices
Associate Director, U.S. Equity Indices, S&P Dow Jones Indices
Hamish Preston is Associate Director, U.S. Equity Indices at S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI). Hamish is responsible for providing insights and thought leadership on S&P DJI’s U.S. equity index suite, including the S&P 500® and The Dow®, and he assists with the development of new benchmarks for market participants and promotes their potential applications. He is also a frequent contributor to financial media outlets.
Prior to his current role, Hamish worked in Global Research & Design at S&P DJI, where he was responsible for conceptualization, research, and design covering global strategy, factor-based, alternative beta, and thematic equity indices. Previously, Hamish worked in Index Investment Strategy at S&P DJI, providing research and commentary on the entire S&P DJI product set, including U.S. and global equities, commodities, fixed income, and economic indices.
Hamish holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the London School of Economics and graduated with distinction from the University of Birmingham with a master’s degree in financial economics.
The S&P 500® was launched on March 4, 1957, and so yesterday marked its 64th birthday. To celebrate this milestone, a number of my colleagues and I recently appeared on our Index Investment Strategy team’s weekly call (sign up for the daily dashboard to receive the invite). If you couldn’t make it, here are a…
2020 witnessed outperformance from some of the largest S&P 500® companies as investors expected these firms to be better placed to navigate the COVID-19 environment. Exhibit 1 shows that this outperformance led to the largest names accounting for an unusually high proportion of the U.S. large-cap equity benchmark, and therefore having a bigger impact on…
One of the major trends in the last few years has been the outperformance of large, growth-oriented stocks and, at first glance, 2020 represented a continuation of this trend. For example, the S&P 500® Growth (33.5%) outperformed the S&P 500 Value (1.4%) by 32.1% last year, the largest difference in calendar year total returns between…
Yesterday, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Tesla will be added to the S&P 500® prior to the open on Monday, Dec. 21, 2020. The Index Committee has not yet determined which current constituent Tesla will replace, nor how Tesla will be added to the index—because of its size, S&P DJI is seeking feedback through…
Growth style investing has outperformed value for over a decade but its relative returns against value so far in 2020 have been unprecedented: the S&P 500® Growth index boasts its highest-ever year-to-date relative returns (+32%) versus its value counterpart through the third quarter. This comes despite growth’s eight-month winning streak coming to an end in…
2020 has certainly been an extremely unusual year as economies, companies and individuals have grappled with the impacts of COVID-19. Although this year’s market movements have arguably been even more difficult to predict than usual, and many active managers were wrong-footed earlier this year, investment outlooks have kept at least one eye on the outcome…
Our latest S&P STRIDE dashboard showed a dramatic increase in the cost of retirement income for various retirement dates (vintages) in Q2. For example, the present value of an inflation-adjusted stream of cash flows equal to USD 1 per year – or USD 1/12 per month – starting in 2065 and ending 25 years later,…
After a volatile start to 2020, many investors were looking at double digit declines and were probably re-evaluating their 2020 expected returns. But while COVID-19 continued to determine market sentiment, Q2 hosted a remarkable recovery. The S&P 500 (+20.54%) and the S&P MidCap 400 (+24.07%) posted their highest quarterly total returns since 1998, while the…
We recently held a webinar examining the relevance of the S&P 500 to India-based investors, the potential diversification benefits of incorporating U.S equity exposure to an existing allocation, as well as showing how difficult active managers have found it to beat the index, historically. You can watch a replay of the webinar here; here are…
The emergence of COVID-19 caused sizeable recalibrations in financial markets as investors grappled with the anticipated impacts on people’s lives and on economic activity. Given many companies saw significant drops in market capitalizations amid the recent market sell-off, and in light of expectations for companies’ earnings to suffer from reduced economic activity, some may be…