At last Friday’s close, S&P Dow Jones assigned a number of technology and consumer discretionary names into a new “Communication Services” sector classification. Relative to the old Telecommunication Services definitions, the sector has grown from 3 to 22 companies (not counting dual share listings) and is less concentrated in absolute terms. However, Communications Services remains Read more […]
In part 1 of this post, the current sector weights, returns and correlations of the S&P 500 are shown, as well as a map depicting the expanded telecommunication services sector into communication services. Now, here’s a deeper dive into what is moving and its impact. While the entire list of companies moving can be found Read more […]
The Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) was first developed in 1999 as a four-tiered, hierarchical industry classification system. It is managed jointly by S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI to serve as the major global industry framework for investment research, portfolio management, and asset allocation. Each company is assigned a single GICS classification at the sub-industry Read more […]
Small caps are outperforming large caps significantly in 2018, mainly from the tax cuts, growth, strong dollar and concern about international trade. This has driven the S&P 600 (TR) 8.4% higher than the S&P 500 (TR) (year-to-date through Aug.31, 2018,) measuring the 5th biggest small cap premium in history since 1995, and is the biggest Read more […]
Suppose you, as a hypothetical financial advisor, encounter a hypothetical marketer who presents the following hypothetical performance data: Last Year Trailing 3 Years Trailing 5 Years Trailing 10 Years Portfolio 25.0% 11.9% 16.0% 8.8% Benchmark 21.8% 11.4% 15.8% 8.5% Not only did the portfolio beat its benchmark handily in 2017, says our marketer, but Read more […]
The big news in August was that the aging Bull market (since March 9, 2009) became the longest-running Bull market in S&P 500 history, as it posted an annualized 16.6% equity return and 19.1% with dividends, as my colleague, Howard Silverblatt pointed out. While the record-breaking Bull market for the S&P 500 is spectacular, mid-caps and Read more […]
Debt – actually too much debt – played a leading role in the 2008 financial crisis. A mortgage borrowing binge and a flood of mortgage backed securities set the stage for the collapse of Lehman Brothers and recession that followed. In the immediate aftermath almost every part of the economy went through a period of Read more […]
The stunning statistics on rising college tuition shown in Getting Smarter About Saving For College: Part 1 have led to a need for better ways to save for college. To meet this demand, S&P Dow Jones Indices launched a new index based on research showing how tuition inflation is dependent on general inflation (linked bonds), Read more […]
Did you know there is now about $620 billion more of student loan debt than total U.S. credit card debt? Here are some more astounding statistics highlighted in our new paper: The average student loan debt for 2017 graduates was $39,400, up 6% from the prior year. About 44 million borrowers owe a total of $1.48 trillion in Read more […]
In July, the total return of the S&P SmallCap 600 Growth was 3.75%, which was 1.15% higher than the total return of 2.60% generated by the S&P SmallCap 600 Value. This is interesting since typically growth does not outperform value in small caps when value outperforms growth in large and mid caps. (In July, the total Read more […]
