Over the past two decades, innovation in futures-based commodity indexing has allowed for the launch of commodity indices beyond broad market beta indices and into more sophisticated strategies with non-traditional roll mechanisms or contract selection. In that vein, S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) offers a wide variety of oil indices that offer exposure at Read more […]
The long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on commodities markets is not yet known. There have undoubtedly been short-term impacts on supply and demand, ranging from a collapse in oil demand to supply disruptions at individual mines as a result of COVID-19 infections among mine employees. The longer-term implications of these demand and supply shocks, Read more […]
With the stock market in the midst of a historic slump, many investors may be looking to alternatives to protect against a prolonged downturn. The S&P Strategic Futures Indices are designed to measure the performance of passively constructed, liquid, and transparent solutions by spreading risk evenly across global futures markets utilizing a long/short trend-following strategy Read more […]
Managed futures strategies generally tend to be trend following, which means that when an individual asset shows a clear price uptrend (or downtrend), the strategy will hold a long (or short) position in the asset. The strategies use a wide variety of quantitative models that utilize highly liquid, regulated, exchange-traded financial derivatives across equity, fixed Read more […]
S&P Dow Jones Indices, the world’s leading index provider, launched the S&P GSCI Gold Dynamic Roll 70/30 Futures/Equity Blend in November 2019. It is the first single-commodity-focused futures/equities blended index of its kind in the gold market. In the current environment where investors are looking to diversify, this product is designed to provide a reliable Read more […]
It is a truth universally acknowledged that liquidity is critical to market health; typically when liquidity falls, volatility rises. The Financial Times recently cited claims that the increased use of passive investment vehicles had caused trading volumes in individual S&P 500 constituents to decline. Should we be alarmed? In reality, the notion that single-stock traders Read more […]
The S&P 500® Dividend Points Index tracks dividend payments of S&P 500 constituents, based on a fixed initial market capitalization, independent of equity price changes. The index cannot be invested in directly, but it is tracked by futures contracts listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). Currently, the annual dividend futures are available up to Read more […]
When do sectors matter, and what can you do about it? Sometimes the sector composition of an equity portfolio strongly affects its returns. At other times, single stock effects or overall market effects dominate. Sector-based products such as ETFs and futures have been around for decades, but recently they have attracted growing interest. Exhibit 1 Read more […]
Over the past 10 years, the highest overnight reference rate from the Brazilian Central Bank has been 14.25% from July 2015 through September 2016. In an attempt to hold back the depreciation of the Brazilian real and to keep inflation within the target range, the reference rate dropped 775 bps to 6.50% at the end Read more […]
In my previous blog, we compared a daily inverse index to a “true short” and discussed the increasing vega exposure in the S&P 500® VIX® Short Term Futures Inverse Daily Index over the past couple of years. In this blog, we analyze how the mechanics of a VIX futures index, a low volatility environment, and Read more […]
