Tag Archives: core
2026 Is the Year of the Stock Picker?
Recent market commentary has declared that 2025 was a brutal year for stock picking, with USD 1 trillion pulled out of active equity mutual funds during the year, according to the Investment Company Institute. The year was characterized by sharp double-digit swings for the S&P 500®, and in such environments filled with bouts of volatility,…
- Categories Equities, S&P 500 & DJIA
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- Equities, S&P 500 & DJIA
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Cautioning the Clairvoyant
December is typically when we hear Wall Street strategists announce their forecasts for the S&P 500® for the year ahead, and this year has been no exception: 2026 forecasts have ranged from a relatively bearish 7,100 from Bank of America to a bullish 8,000 from Deutsche Bank. But how accurate have these forecasts been in…
- Categories Equities, S&P 500 & DJIA
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- Equities, S&P 500 & DJIA
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Rallies, Records and Relentless Restlessness: A Tale of Markets in 2025
As 2025 draws to a close, U.S. large caps boast impressive gains: after a rocky start that saw a 19% drawdown, the S&P 500® is up 18% including dividends, as of Dec. 12, significantly above its annualized total return of 10.8% since inception in 1957. The U.S. bellwether also recorded 37 all-time highs this year….
- Categories Equities
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Still Quality by Design: A Deep Dive into the Recent Performance of the S&P SmallCap 600
Prior to the start of 2025, the S&P SmallCap 600® outperformed the Russell 2000—another prominent small-cap U.S. equity index—in 20 of the full calendar years to December 2024. However, the S&P SmallCap 600 has underperformed the Russell 2000 by 9% YTD, putting it on track to record its worst year of relative performance since its…
- Categories Equities
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- Equities
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Indicization Nation
To indicize means to provide, in passive form, a strategy formerly available only via active management. Until the early 1970s, there were no index funds; all assets were managed actively. The shift of assets from active to passive management is one of the most important trends in modern financial history. Our recent Annual Survey of…
- Categories Equities, S&P 500 & DJIA
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Quality by Design: A Deep Dive into the S&P SmallCap 600
The S&P SmallCap 600® represents the U.S. small-cap equity market by tracking companies that meet specific liquidity and financial viability criteria. While both the S&P 600® and Russell 2000 target this segment, their performance has diverged significantly. Since 1994, the S&P 600—built on a rules-based methodology—has consistently outperformed the Russell 2000, delivering a 1.6% higher…
- Categories Equities
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- Equities
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SPIVA Around the World
S&P DJI’s SPIVA (S&P Indices versus Active) Scorecards have been measuring active funds’ performance against appropriate benchmarks for over 20 years. With the release of the SPIVA Asia Ex-Japan Year-End 2024 Scorecard, our latest regional addition, all 11 regional SPIVA Scorecards tracking fund performance in 2024 are now available. 2024 was another challenging year for…
- Categories Equities, Fixed Income
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The 500™: A Brief Look at an Index Icon
Discover why the S&P 500 is widely regarded as the best single gauge of U.S. large-cap equities and the world’s most-tracked index by AUM.
- Categories S&P 500 & DJIA
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- S&P 500 & DJIA
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Shifting Equity Sensitivities with S&P 500 Sectors
Broad-based benchmarks such as the S&P 500® and S&P SmallCap 600® demonstrated an upbeat response to the U.S. presidential election, rising 6% and 11%, respectively, in November 2024. The spread in U.S. size segments was more muted relative to S&P 500 sectors. Exhibit 1 presents the November 2024 cumulative total return of the S&P 500…
- Categories Equities, S&P 500 & DJIA
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The S&P 500 Top 20 Select Indices: A Deep Dive into Mega-Cap Performance
In the first part of this blog series, we introduced the S&P 500® Top 20 Select Indices, including their construction and relevance to the equity market. Now, let’s delve deeper into the indices’ historical performance and relative performance to other similar indices. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the S&P 500 Top 20 Select Indices all had similar cumulative…
- Categories Equities
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