Recently, a number of reports highlighted a surge in popularity for actively managed U.S. equity funds in 2019. The main explanation for this trend appears to be the volatility observed in the final few months of 2018: market participants seem to believe active managers are better able to navigate more volatile markets. However, the data Read more […]
The fourth quarter of 2018 was pretty turbulent for global equities. Volatility and correlations rose, the majority of the S&P Global BMI’s 48 country constituents declined by double digits, recent darlings among factor strategies (momentum and growth) lagged, and the S&P 500’s 13.52% quarterly plunge left the benchmark with its first calendar-year loss in a Read more […]
One of the most persistent trends over the last decade has been the underperformance of value compared to growth. The S&P 500 Growth beat its Value counterpart in eight of the last ten full calendar years, and growth is currently on track to outperform in 2018 (you can find year-to-date figures on page four of our Read more […]
One of the largest ever changes to the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS®) went into effect prior to the open on Monday 24th September, affecting around 10% of the S&P 500’s market capitalization. In case you missed our previous announcements, here is a brief explanation of GICS, what changed, and why these changes went into Read more […]
The latest Canada SPIVA® scorecard landed recently. While data up to the end of June 2018 was consistent with results from previous SPIVA Canada scorecards – active management once again found it challenging to beat the passive benchmarks – there were pockets of success. Here are a few highlights. Active managers found it difficult to Read more […]
We recently introduced a new measure, capacity-adjusted dispersion, to help conceptualize the relative value of research across different markets. Intuitively, capacity-adjusted dispersion combines the potential opportunity for outperformance (dispersion) and the potential size of active positions (capitalization) in a given market. Exhibit 1 shows the capacity-adjusted figures for several markets, globally. All else being equal, Read more […]
How much should a portfolio manager be willing to pay for research? This is a question any manager has to answer, but it has recently become more pertinent as newly imposed European rules require the costs of investment research to be unbundled from trading. Here is a brief overview of a stylized framework for estimating Read more […]
Small caps have a reputation among many market participants as being an inefficient asset class that lends itself to active management. But our S&P Indices Versus Active (SPIVA®) scorecards have repeatedly challenged this perception. Exhibit 1 shows that in 13 of the last 17 calendar year periods, the majority of actively managed, small-cap U.S. equity Read more […]
The S&P DJI index strategy team has for several years produced a variety of monthly and quarterly index dashboards. Earlier this year, we began to provide a daily summary of what S&P DJI indices and research are telling us about the markets on a day-to-day basis. (The summary is e-mailed daily to subscribers; see the Read more […]
We recently hosted a webinar examining the potential value in a sector-based approach to portfolio construction, their application in navigating different market environments, and some key considerations for those adopting sector-based strategies. You can view a replay of the event here; a few highlights might whet the appetite… The Global Importance of U.S Equity Sectors Read more […]