Last year’s prognostications about the events and trends to monitor in 2020 have evaporated as COVID-19 has upended people’s lives and caused massive recalibrations in financial markets. In Q1 2020, we said “goodbye to the bull market”; large market movements became the new normal; correlations and dispersion shifted drastically; quantitative easing returned; and access to Read more […]
The last few weeks have definitely felt like a “where were you when…?” moment as coronavirus fears spread around the world and many people’s day-to-day lives have been disrupted. Amid the anxiety and disruption, global financial markets nosedived, sending all major equity indices tumbling, VIX® soaring to levels not seen since the financial crisis, and Read more […]
The last few days have been turbulent for financial markets as coronavirus contagion fears took hold. Global equities fell; the S&P 500®’s 6.6% price return plunge since the end of last week wiped off its year-to-date gains; recent U.S. sector and industry declines mean that nearly all S&P Composite 1500® industries are down month-to-date; and Read more […]
Over the last few years, mega-cap companies have played an increasingly important role in driving U.S. equity market returns. Indeed, the five largest names in the S&P 500® accounted for 16.8% of the index at the end of last year, the highest year-end weight since 1982 and higher than the 16.6% reached at the end Read more […]
After a pullback in the market over the last week, it remains to be seen if U.S. equities will finish the month in the black. However, as of yesterday’s close, the S&P Composite 1500, which represents over 90% of U.S. equity capitalization, was up 1.21% since the turn of the year as large cap gains Read more […]
Every year, certain trends take centre stage and help to explain market returns. For example, expectations over trade negotiations and Fed policy were useful for explaining market performance in 2019. Many of these developments often appear obvious with the benefit of hindsight, but identifying the trends and their subsequent impact in advance is far from Read more […]
The S&P Composite 1500 measures the U.S. equity market by combining three world-renowned benchmarks – the S&P 500®, S&P MidCap 400®, and S&P SmallCap 600® – which together encompass approximately 90% of U.S. equity market capitalization. With 2019 in the rear-view mirror, it is obvious that last year was extremely positive for U.S. equities: the Read more […]
With 2019 coming to a close, market participants may use the time to evaluate portfolio performance and to assess what changes (if any) they would like to make based on return expectations and the market outlook. While the future is uncertain – hindsight really will be 2020 when it comes to evaluating next year’s returns Read more […]
Yesterday marked 25 years since the launch of the S&P SmallCap 600. Since then, the small-cap equity benchmark delivered an annualized total return of nearly 11% and has become the basis for many investment strategies; around USD 73 billion was indexed to the S&P SmallCap 600 as of the end of 2018. And if we Read more […]
S&P Indices Versus Active (SPIVA) scorecards provide mainstay performance comparisons between active managers and benchmarks. Our latest Institutional SPIVA scorecard shows once again how difficult active managers found it to beat benchmarks, net- or gross-of-fees. Here are a couple of highlights. 2018 proved challenging for institutional equity managers, although institutional fixed income managers showed some Read more […]