Get Indexology® Blog updates via email.


CONTRIBUTOR
tianyin_cheng

Tianyin Cheng

Former Senior Director, ESG Indices, S&P Dow Jones Indices

Full Bio
Oct 15, 2020

The Case for Investing in Water

Water is essential to the production and delivery of nearly all goods and services. Many businesses are reliant on a sufficient flow of clean water to operate and realize their growth ambitions. Overconsumption of water, water pollution, environmental degradation, and changing climatic conditions are making clean water an increasingly scarce resource.1 As the world population…

READ

May 15, 2020

Why Did Dividend Indices Underperform during the Coronavirus Sell-Off?

Over the past 20 years, the S&P 500® experienced three bear markets with drawdowns greater than 30%—the 2000-2001 Tech Bust, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), and the ongoing coronavirus sell-off. During both the Tech Bust and the GFC, various U.S.-focused dividend indices outperformed the S&P 500. However, during the coronavirus sell-off, most dividend indices…

READ

Apr 6, 2020

The Trade-Off between Upside Participation and Downside Protection

Financial market history is rife with prolonged bull market periods and deep corrections. With no proven way to correctly time the market, market participants can stay fully invested and attempt to capture the potential upside, but they also have to endure and recover from the full depths of drawdowns. Hence, some market participants may choose…

READ

Apr 1, 2020

Have Inverse Indices Been Able to Provide the Hedge You Expected?

Since March 9, 2020, we have seen equities and bonds fall together. As bonds fail to provide the diversification benefit in the short term, some investors may choose to use inverse exchange-traded funds as short-term trading tools for an explicit hedge. Inverse strategies typically aim to replicate the daily performance of their underlying indices with…

READ

Mar 16, 2020

The VIX Futures Curve Is in Backwardation

Backwardation is incredibly uncommon in the VIX® futures curve. While the reason behind this term structure is not perfectly understood, the conclusion is clear: long and hold does not work for VIX futures, as the roll cost burns. There are different ways to measure VIX futures backwardation: by using the relationship between the VIX level…

READ

Jun 21, 2019

The Case for Dividend Futures Contracts

The S&P 500® Dividend Points Index tracks dividend payments of S&P 500 constituents, based on a fixed initial market capitalization, independent of equity price changes. The index cannot be invested in directly, but it is tracked by futures contracts listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). Currently, the annual dividend futures are available up to…

READ

Feb 12, 2018

A Case for Dividend Growth Strategies Part 1

There are two major types of dividend strategies: Dividend growers: those targeting stocks that consistently grow their dividends over time High dividend yielders: those focusing on stocks that pay a high dividend yield In our paper “A Case for Dividend Growth Strategies,” we compared dividend growth strategies to high-dividend-yielding strategies and concluded that dividend growers,…

READ

Jul 21, 2017

ESG in India Today

Green infrastructure, especially clean and renewable energy, is at the heart of Indian ESG efforts today. Despite the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, India stands with its commitments made at Paris. The Indian government’s commitment—in context of the recent ratification of the Paris Agreement—is to reduce emissions by 33% to 35% by 2030 and…

READ

Jul 20, 2017

China’s Green Bond Markets

China has emerged as a global leader in green finance, especially green bonds, and from 2014 to 2016, it was the fastest-growing market in the region for sustainable investing.  The total amount of green-labeled bond issuances amounted to USD 93.4 billion at the end of 2016 and reflected strong China-based issuances (40% of labeled green…

READ

Jul 19, 2017

Asian Asset Owners Are Leapfrogging Into ESG

Sustainable investing has become particularly popular in Europe, across many countries.  In the Asia Pacific region, certain countries such as Japan and Australia have shown stronger interest in ESG thanks to asset owner demand, availability of ESG data, and regulatory pressures.  In the last couple of years, we have seen some of Japan’s largest institutional…

READ


Get Indexology® Blog updates via email.

Indexology® Blog
Contributors

SEE ALL