During the pandemic, we’ve seen an evolution of behavioral changes fuel transcendent trends across our economy that may create new future growth opportunities. This has spurred investor interest in thematic ETFs that seek to provide exposure to firms at the forefront of innovation. In 2020, more than $40 billion flowed into ETFs focused on Future…
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The S&P Systematic Global Macro Index (S&P SGMI) is a trend-following strategy that takes long or short positions in 37 constituent futures across equites, commodities, fixed income, and FX. In 2020, the S&P SGMI did particularly well during the COVID-19-related drawdowns, finishing March up 11.3%, and closing the year at an all-time high. Thus far…
In part 1 of this blog, we saw how falling real interest rates reduce the retirement income a given account balance can support. In part 2, we focus on how interest rate risk may potentially be managed through an income-focused asset allocation. The S&P STRIDE (S&P Shift to Retirement Income and Decumulation) indices measure the…
Retirement investors faced numerous investment headwinds in 2020. In addition to heightened volatility in the stock market, they had to cope with falling interest rates on both regular and inflation-indexed bonds. Real interest rates, interest rates that have been adjusted to remove the effects of inflation, are especially relevant for retirement investors because lower real…
Plagued by the novel coronavirus pandemic and election uncertainty, 2020 was a year that many are happy to forget. Nonetheless, the S&P 500® finished strong, up 12.15% for the fourth quarter and 18.40% for the year, driven largely by newly developed vaccines and aggressive economic stimulus measures. In the fourth quarter, yields on the U.S….
In October 2019, S&P Dow Jones Indices launched the S&P ESG Global Macro Index, an ESG-themed, regionally diversified, volatility-managed, multi-asset index. As discussed in my previous blog, the index has generated stable absolute returns of 5.44% annually, a volatility of 4.89%, and downside protection during extreme market scenarios, based on back-tested performance from Aug. 31,…
Decrement indices have gained popularity as the underlying assets of equity-linked structured products in Europe and Asia. According to SRP, among the 318 products across asset classes in France that matured or autocalled between April 2018 and March 2019, more than 32 were linked to decrement indices.1 One of the reasons behind this recent popularity…
When we think about reversals in the market, we likely think of brief turnarounds in performance. But what if it’s more? What makes a reversal turn into a recovery is a full-fledged long-term improvement in performance. We can apply this logic to Equal Weight’s recent experience. After consistent underperformance since April 2017, the S&P 500®…
In a previous blog, we explored the glide paths of the S&P Risk-Managed Target Date Indices. In this post, we will compare the index construction of the S&P Risk-Managed Target Date Indices with that of the S&P Target Date Indices and examine their performance. Index Construction of the Baseline S&P Risk-Managed Target Date Indices Each…
For the first time, the SPIVA Europe Mid-Year 2020 Scorecard introduced risk-adjusted performance evaluations of European equity funds. Previously, proponents of active fund management may have criticized the SPIVA scorecard for measuring performance on a return-only basis. They may have argued that this only told one side of the story, and that their abilities should…
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