To say that the world is different now than it was a year ago would be an astounding understatement. COVID-19 brought about once unimaginable conditions and changes. In the financial realm, market volatility spiked and remains markedly higher across all sectors compared to the beginning of 2020. Yet, observing the market based purely on performance,…
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The SPIVA® Canada Year-End 2019 Scorecard was released recently. Despite the strong performance of broad equities, 2019 proved to be yet another challenging year for active funds in Canada. Here are a few highlights from the report. Strong Market Performance Did Not Translate to Active Fund Outperformance The S&P/TSX Composite posted its highest annual return…
The S&P/TSX Capped Information Technology Index gained a whopping 62% in 2019, topping all other Canadian equity sectors and beating the broad market S&P/TSX Composite by about 40%. Given the traditionally cyclical nature of the Information Technology sector and its outsized gains during the bull market, the sector might be expected to lag during the…
It remains to be seen what the full economic impact of the COVID-19 virus will be, but it is already clear that no equity market has escaped unscathed. (In fact, most of them have been scathed rather badly.) The Canadian equity market was humming along in 2020 through February 20, 2020, with the S&P/TSX Composite…
Prior research has demonstrated that profitability matters for small-cap companies in the U.S. and in global equity markets. For example, the S&P SmallCap 600®—which includes an earnings eligibility criteria—has outperformed the broader Russell 2000 Index (with lower volatility) over its 25-year track record. Our new S&P/TSX SmallCap Select Index extends this phenomenon to Canadian equities,…
While nearly everyone in the Canadian investment community has heard of the S&P/TSX Composite, few are aware of the key methodological intricacies that distinguish it from other broad market Canadian equity benchmarks. The most notable distinction is that the S&P/TSX Composite is designed specifically for Canadians (as are all S&P/TSX Indices), while many other Canadian…
The S&P/TSX 60 gained 15.5% YTD[i] and many companies included in the index have benefitted from business prospects in the U.S. While nearly all stocks in the index are domiciled in Canada, 49%[ii] of combined revenues come from within Canada’s borders, while another 30% are sourced in the U.S. As shown in Exhibit 1, stocks…
Our Year-End 2018 Canada SPIVA scorecard was released today. In addition to showing that the majority of Canadian active equity managers failed to outperform their benchmarks, the scorecard’s results provide the opportunity to dispel some common misconceptions. Here is a brief summary. 1) Higher volatility does not necessarily result in outperformance by active managers A…
Despite weak Canadian equity market returns this year, REITs have continued their long-term outperformance. The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite has fallen 8.5% on a total return basis through Dec. 18, 2018, while the S&P/TSX Capped REIT continues to be a bright spot, gaining 8.8% over the same period—a difference of over 17%. Market analysts tend to…
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