Tag Archives: IIS
Indexing Modern Income: Covered Calls Uncovered
Capital markets offer several primary sources of income to investors, including money market interest, bond coupons and stock dividends. Alternative sources of income abound and, most recently, innovation within the exchange-traded fund (ETF) industry has introduced options-based income strategies to a wider range of market participants. In the U.S., investors both large and small have…
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2025: A Market for Stock Pickers in France?
Despite a strong year for global equities in 2025, most active funds in Europe struggled to outperform their benchmarks. According to the latest SPIVA® Europe Year-End 2025 Scorecard, 81.8% of active equity funds lagged their benchmarks over the past year, rising to 97.0% over the 10-year period.1 The France Equity fund category offered a notable…
- Categories Equities
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- Equities
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Leveraged Loan Market Snapshot
Amid growing uncertainty, small market shifts can have large impacts on companies with lower credit ratings like those found in the S&P USD Select Leveraged Loan Index. This index measures the performance of a liquid and diversified universe of USD‑denominated leveraged loans by tracking all fully funded term loans with a minimum facility size of…
- Categories Fixed Income
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- Fixed Income
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Mapping Liquidity across S&P 500 Sectors
Trading linked to S&P 500® sectors has expanded meaningfully in recent years, as market participants increasingly use sector instruments to allocate capital, hedge risk and express relative views within U.S. equities. As participation in index-linked markets has grown, liquidity has become an informative signal, revealing where attention is focused and how risk is being transferred….
- Categories Equities
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- Equities
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What Do the SPIVA Australia Results Imply for Active Portfolio Construction?
Our latest SPIVA® Australia Scorecard underscored the challenges that Australian active funds faced in converting a favorable stock-picking environment into meaningful results in 2025. Among the 831 active equity funds domiciled in Australia that we examined—spanning global equity, domestic equity and REITs—over two-thirds (570 funds) underperformed their category benchmarks. In contrast, active Australian bond funds…
- Categories Equities, Fixed Income
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Return of the Macro: Declining Dispersion and Climbing Correlations
As we approach the end of the first quarter, the S&P 500® is down 3% QTD, and underneath the surface, there have been significant crosscurrents at play. Concerns about the impact of AI on software companies have been prevalent, with the S&P Software & Services Select Industry Index down 20% QTD, while chipmakers have remained…
- Categories Equities
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- Equities
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Defining Paths: The Expanding Landscape of Options-Based Index Strategies
The investment landscape is in a perpetual state of evolution, with market participants continually seeking innovative tools. In recent years, options-based strategies—particularly those delivered through an ETF wrapper—have surged in popularity. Once the domain of institutional investors or structured product users, options-based strategies like covered call and buffered strategies have been democratized. This growth represents…
- Categories Multi-Asset
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- Multi-Asset
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Spot the Difference
From a U.S. equities perspective, the first month of 2026 started on a different trajectory compared to years past. S&P 500® performance trailed much of the rest of the world (as measured by the S&P World Ex-U.S. Index), and within the U.S., the performance of the S&P 500 Information Technology (“U.S. Tech”) ranked in the…
- Categories Equities
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Tech Tantrums
The past week has been turbulent for Big Tech, with disappointing reactions to earnings from Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, while Apple and Meta emerged relatively unscathed after announcing their results. Concerns about growing capital expenditures on AI1 among these giants have led to renewed bubble fears among market participants. In an environment characterized by such…
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Stocks, Sectors and Success?
The recent market rotation toward small caps and value has also extended toward sectors,1 with Technology, which was one of the top-performing sectors of 2025, turning from a leader into a laggard in January. Meanwhile, cyclical sectors including Energy and Materials have outperformed. But how challenging have the conditions been for sector allocators? Exhibit 1…
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