“Data! Data! Data!” he cried impatiently. “I can’t make bricks without clay.” – Sherlock Holmes (in “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”) Despite yesterday’s hand wringing loss for equity markets— the S&P 500 dropped 3.3%—the index is still up 5.8% year to date 2018. Nevertheless, losing in one day a third of what the equity market 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 […]
The S&P Global 1200 can’t stay the same. Along with the S&P 500® and other headline indices from S&P DJI, many companies within the S&P Global 1200 will be given new sector assignments due to the upcoming Sept. 24, 2018, GICS® updates. The most visible change will be the renaming of the Telecommunication Services sector Read more […]
S&P Dow Jones Indices will reshuffle stocks in September to reflect the revised structure of the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS®) in its indices. The move will see telecommunication services replaced by a new sector called communication services. Its constituents will transfer from telecommunication, information technology (IT), and consumer discretionary. Exhibit 1 shows affected S&P Read more […]
In a prior post, we reviewed the asset class risk contributions of a two-asset portfolio with varying weights. For an equal-weighted portfolio consisting of equities and bonds, we observed that nearly all contribution to total portfolio risk came from equities. To achieve equal risk contribution, the nominal weights in the portfolio would need to be Read more […]
In a prior post, we reviewed the risk and returns of portfolios with different equity and fixed income combinations. We saw that while equities outperformed fixed income during the period studied, fixed income had a higher risk-adjusted return ratio (annualized return divided by annualized risk). Due to the low return correlation between the two asset Read more […]
In recent years, the term “risk parity” has become a catch-all phrase to describe strategies that attempt to allocate based on risk. The launch of the S&P Risk Parity Indices last week is a testament to the proliferation and the popularity of the style. As we noted in a prior blog, there is a lack Read more […]
What benefits do dividend payments and dividend yields convey? The answers may sometimes be overlooked as market participants seek equity income or the perceived safety of dividend strategies. In 1961, Merton Miller and Franco Modigliani (M&M) theorized that dividend policy is irrelevant to company value.[1] Of course theories are models of reality and require simplifying Read more […]
Following an index announcement stating Nektar (NKTR) among other stocks would be moving to the S&P 500 prior to the open on March 19, 2018, an inquiry came in about the index impact of NKTR on the S&P SmallCap 600 Health Care Index performance. Given the stock rose over 70% in 2018, it seemed reasonable to Read more […]
Although market volatility has retreated somewhat since the spike in early February, it has remained elevated. In the last 30 trading sessions, the S&P 500 moved by more than 1% (in either direction) 14 times. VOLATILITY FOR S&P 500 (21-Day Rolling) Volatility manifests itself in both dispersion (a measure of the magnitude of differences among Read more […]
