Factor-based investing has gained popularity in the global investment community. While the long-term risk premia of factors have been evidenced in developed equity markets, some believe the inefficiencies in emerging markets could create better opportunities for factor-based investing. In our recently published paper, “How Smart Beta Strategies Work in the Chinese Market,” we examined the Read more […]
Coming into month-end, and as the street prepares its monthly summaries, (all figures are as of May 29th), the S&P 500 looks set to complete the month with a loss of around 5%. So, what went wrong? Global markets started the year very positively: the S&P 500 was up 18% by the end of April, Read more […]
Passive use of factor strategies began with growth and value style investing. S&P Dow Jones Indices now offers single- and multi-factor indices that provide exposure to growth, quality, value, momentum, size, yield, and low volatility factors. Factors perform differently depending on market conditions, economic cycles, or investor sentiment. Timing factors can be difficult. Many market Read more […]
Indices based on factors such as low volatility and quality generally have defensive characteristics. These strategies tend to outperform the broad benchmark in down markets, as previous studies have shown. Yet some market participants also believe that active management fares somewhat better than the benchmark in periods of volatility and distress. In 2018, the S&P Read more […]
Dividends and stock buybacks are two ways that a company returns capital to its shareholders. Investors can benefit from both, but is there a synergy that can result from combining them? We’ve seen a surge in both buyback value and the number of participating companies in recent years. In 2018, 444 of S&P 500® companies Read more […]
In general, it is a positive sign when a company buy back shares. This means the company believes its stock is undervalued and is confident about its future earnings. In recent years, buybacks have become increasingly popular. With a record number of companies buying back shares, how are these companies are faring? A company can Read more […]
In this blog, the third in our introduction to Growth at a Reasonable Price (GARP) strategies, we look at risk and return. The main objective of the S&P 500® GARP Index is to capture the performance of growth stocks with relatively high quality and value composite scores over a long-term investment horizon. Historically, the GARP Read more […]
Fluctuating periods of “risk-on” and “risk-off” mean that spikes in equity market volatility and large drawdowns are increasingly common in today’s economy. Exhibit 1 shows events throughout the current market cycle causing notable rises in volatility and large drawdowns. With more of these likely in the future, as our long bull market cycle ages, how Read more […]
The December 2018 rebalance of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats added four new companies, with the changes effective at the open of Feb. 1, 2019. The new firms are Caterpillar Inc., Chubb Limited, People’s United Financial Inc., and United Technologies Corp. These four companies have the distinguishing characteristics that allow them to be eligible for Read more […]
February has been a great month for factor index performance: of the 17 S&P 500®-based factor indices reported in our quarterly factor dashboard, 11 have outperformed the “vanilla” S&P 500 so far. Our indices focused on quality and shareholder return are having particularly strong months, with the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats®, the S&P 500 Buyback Read more […]