Tag Archives: factors
High-Capacity Construction: The S&P Dividend Growers Indices
In our past blog, Introducing the S&P Dividend Growers Indices, we highlighted the key objectives and investment rationale behind the S&P U.S. Dividend Growers Index and S&P Global Ex-U.S. Dividend Growers Index. We showed that companies that have consistently increased dividends over consecutive years displayed greater financial strength through being generally more profitable with less…
Using Market Fluctuations to Unlock Opportunity
Volatility often represents uncertainty, but it could also signal opportunity. Take a closer look at how the systematic design of the S&P 500 Dynamic Participation Index may help market participants identify and reflect potential opportunities inside the daily price fluctuations of the S&P 500.
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Introducing the S&P Dividend Growers Indices
Dividends are an important part of the investment toolkit, contributing 36% to the total return of the S&P 500® since 1936.1 This sizable contribution has been particularly welcome during the multi-year low interest rate environment and, more recently, as the world has faced economic dislocations induced by COVID-19. In addition to dividend income, investors have…
Managing and Planning through Uncertain Times from an FA Perspective
In March 2021, we facilitated a discussion during S&P DJI’s virtual event with two financial advisors from Australia and Canada and an NZX representative who works closely with FAs in New Zealand. We asked them to reflect on the past year and how they pivoted with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Andrew Neatt, TD…
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A Return to Normalcy?
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic a year ago produced the highest-ever monthly volatility reading for the S&P 500® in March 2020. Volatility began to decline as the market’s recovery began, but if we measure volatility on a 12-month trailing basis, as we do in Exhibit 1, we see the sustained impact of last year’s…
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Concentrating on Technology
After the dominant performance of large-cap technology stocks in 2020, concentration concerns naturally come to mind. The HHI, or Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, is a widely-used concentration measure; it’s defined as the sum of the squared index constituents’ percentage weights (usually taken as whole numbers). For example, the HHI for an equally-weighted 50 stock portfolio is 200…
Happy Birthday to Low Vol and High Beta!
On April 4, 2011, S&P DJI launched two strategy indices, the S&P 500® Low Volatility Index and the S&P 500 High Beta Index. Ten years of live history let us compare how the two indices actually performed versus their pre-launch back-tests. Many investors take back-tested history with an understandable grain of salt. But even live…
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Exploring Equal Weight’s Impact on Risk/Return
What are the potential risk/return benefits of the S&P 500 Equal Weight Index? S&P DJI’s Hamish Preston and Tim Edwards explore what’s driving the mega-cap trend, multi-decade highs in S&P 500 concentration, and potential applications for the S&P 500 EWI.
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Elevated Volatility Levels in Sectors Remain
The shock that the onset of the pandemic sent through the financial markets a year ago is mostly a distant memory. The S&P/TSX Composite Low Volatility Index was up 34% for the one-year period ending March 19, 2021, lagging its benchmark index. This is not surprising given that the performance of the S&P/TSX Composite Index…
The Case for Equal Weight Indexing
2020 witnessed outperformance from some of the largest S&P 500® companies as investors expected these firms to be better placed to navigate the COVID-19 environment. Exhibit 1 shows that this outperformance led to the largest names accounting for an unusually high proportion of the U.S. large-cap equity benchmark, and therefore having a bigger impact on…