Tag Archives: equities
Global Diversification Trending in India – Time to Notice?
The merit of international diversification seems to have proven itself lately in the context of the Indian market. Over the past year, interest has increased in adding global exposures to local investment portfolios. Global markets offer the potential opportunity to diversify beyond a traditional concentrated focus on local markets. The latest August Global Equity Dashboard…
- Other Tags
Riding the Value Wave
U.S. equity markets seemed to undergo a fundamental change of direction in September of last year. Exhibit 1 illustrates the shift; our growth indices, which had outperformed value handily through the end of August, have lagged ever since. The spreads between growth and value are even greater when we compute them using our Pure Growth…
- Categories Equities, S&P 500 & DJIA
- Other Tags
What Canada Is Missing
Canadian investors have long participated in U.S. equity markets, but are materially underweight in U.S. mid- and small-cap companies. In this respect, Canadians resemble their European counterparts, whose investments in the U.S. rarely range beyond those companies included in the S&P 500®. This underinvestment is surprising for several reasons. European market participants are no stranger…
- Categories Equities
- Other Tags
- Categories
- Equities
- Other Tags
Equity: Diversity and Inclusion
We can think of an active equity portfolio as a combination of a benchmark (the S&P 500®, for example) and a set of active bets that measure the portfolio’s deviation from the benchmark. The relative size of the active bets is sometimes called “active share,” and is a convenient way to judge a manager’s aggressiveness….
- Categories Equities, S&P 500 & DJIA
- Other Tags
Mean Reversion and Momentum
After almost four years of underperformance, we witnessed a change in fortune in February 2021, as the relative performance of the S&P 500® Equal Weight Index turned positive. By the end of April, Equal Weight had outperformed the S&P 500 by 11% over the prior 12 months, as we see in Exhibit 1. Equal Weight’s…
- Categories Equities
- Other Tags
Woodstock for Capitalists
Berkshire Hathaway is scheduled to hold its annual shareholders’ meeting this Saturday, May 1. This is the second consecutive year in which the meeting will be virtual; in 2019, attendance was nearly 40,000, which makes social distancing somewhat difficult. We noted two years ago that Berkshire’s investment performance, though formidable over the long run, had…
- Categories Equities, S&P 500 & DJIA
- Other Tags
Hidden in Plain Sight
International equity investors have long participated in the U.S. market, but their interest has often focused on the globally recognized blue chips included in benchmarks such as the Dow® and the S&P 500®. In doing so, they may be missing out on the long-term outperformance of smaller companies; presently, they may also be missing out…
- Categories Equities
- Other Tags
- Categories
- Equities
- Other Tags
SPIVA and Style
Last week S&P Dow Jones Indices released its SPIVA® U.S. Year-End 2020 Scorecard. As has been the case for 17 of the past 20 calendar years, the majority of active large-cap managers underperformed the S&P 500®. Performance was better for mid- and small-cap managers, as Exhibit 1 shows. What caused the advantage for smaller-capitalization strategies?…
- Categories Equities, S&P 500 & DJIA
- Other Tags
A Change in Fortune
Three months ago, we observed that times of severe underperformance for Equal Weight can bode well for future performance. This reflection had become reality by the end of February. After almost four years of underperformance, the S&P 500® Equal Weight Index outperformed the S&P 500 by 1.6% over the past 12 months, as we see…
Man Bites Dog: The Year for Active Management?
For at least five years, we’ve noticed that, despite historical performance, active managers regularly proclaim that this year will at last be the time when active management shows its value. I suspect that most advocates of indexing derive at least some guilty pleasure from observing this ritual. (I know I do.) So, we want to…
- Categories Equities, S&P 500 & DJIA
- Other Tags