Hamish Preston is Senior Associate, Index Investment Strategy, at S&P Dow Jones Indices. The Index Investment Strategy team provides research and commentary on the entire S&P Dow Jones Indices product set, including U.S. and global equities, commodities, fixed income, and economic indices.
Hamish joined the Index Investment Strategy team in 2015. He 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 world’s most prestigious cycling race, the Tour de France, begins tomorrow. The tour lasts three weeks and comprises a series of one-day stages. Although the main prize – the yellow jersey – is awarded to the rider that takes the minimum amount of time to complete the entire tour, there are plenty of races Read more […]
The last few days have been a feast of entertainment for the sporting enthusiast; the Champions League Final, the Monaco Grand Prix, and the NBA Conference Finals were all on the menu. While the sports represented are distinct, these events have something notable in common: the persistence of their participants. The same two teams reached Read more […]
S&P Dow Jones Indices recently launched the S&P Japan 500 Equal Weight Index, an equal-weight version of the S&P Japan 500. Over the 15-year period ending in February 2018, encompassing the latter part of Japan’s so-called “lost decades” of stagnant equity returns, the equal-weight index would have outperformed the cap-weighted Japanese equity benchmark by a stonking Read more […]
Global equity markets experienced a challenging February. A U.S.-led selloff triggered a spike in volatility; the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) recorded its largest ever daily increase on February 5 to reach its highest level since August 2015. But is higher volatility here to stay? Towards the end of last year, we published a paper – Read more […]
Our recent paper explores the characteristics and applications of equal-weight indices from various standpoints. Since a number of equal-weight indices have outperformed their corresponding cap-weighted parents over the past 15 years, one of the most interesting perspectives asks if factors can help to explain the excess returns of equal weight. Which factors are most relevant? Read more […]
We recently updated our S&P Europe 350 Factor Dashboard, which shows the factor exposures of a number of our European indices (interested parties can sign up here). Here are some highlights from our year-end report. Little separated the returns to European core factor indices, but all outperformed While the extremely low stock-level dispersion contributed to Read more […]
As we rapidly approach Christmas and New Year (not to mention year-end evaluations) it seems fitting to reflect on what happened in 2017. We will publish our regional month-end dashboards on December 29 (interested parties may sign up here). Before then, here are a few highlights using data as of December 15. Volatility was historically Read more […]
VIX® closed last night at 11.33. What, if anything, does that mean? We recently published a research paper, together with a more digestible practitioner’s guide, that provides a method for converting a given VIX level into an expectation for S&P 500® volatility over the next 30 days. Exhibit 1 shows that these estimates have provided Read more […]
Subscribers to our European dashboard will know that October was a broadly positive month for the region’s equity markets; the S&P Europe 350 posted a 1.66% total return, while nearly every equity strategy in the region gained. Additionally, the S&P Europe 350’s closing price level of 1,600 for October brought the benchmark to within touching Read more […]
Among the many themes to have emerged in U.S. markets during the first six months of 2017, low volatility in equities and changes in the global interest rate environment—some realized and some anticipated—were particularly important drivers. In a similar vein to our summary on Europe, here are some thoughts on these trends. The potential rewards Read more […]